


Children

by JCapasso



Series: Beyond [2]
Category: Legacies (TV 2018), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 34
Words: 57,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25361995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: Sixteen years after they ended up in the prison world, the gang and their kids are coming home to a much changed world. Including the fact that their home is now a boarding school.
Relationships: Bonnie Bennett/Malachai "Kai" Parker, Caroline Forbes/Stefan Salvatore, Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore, Josette "Jo" Laughlin/Alaric Saltzman
Series: Beyond [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832122
Comments: 80
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note: Without Kai's involvement, Jo never died, the heretics were never released from their prison world, and basically all of the drama of the last few seasons never happened which means that Stefan is still alive too and not cured.

Pictures in order: The identical twins (Malakai {Kai} and Gabriel {Gabe}), Carolina (Carrie), Serenity (Ser), Damien, Stefanie (Steffi), Carolyn (Lynn)

/>Damon knew that someone was going to have to bite this bullet, and it seemed like it was going to end up being him. He knew how Kai felt after their ‘guy’s night’ talks and Elena felt the same way, but neither of them were bringing it up, so Damon waited until a time when all the kids were outside playing with Artemis and Ares watching over them before he went and sat across from Bonnie and put his hands on her knees. “It’s time to go home, Bon-bon.”

“What? No. The twins aren’t fixed yet. There’s still more we could find…”

Kai wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “We have six different spells that could work, one of which we /know/ will work if the others fail. It’s just a waiting game now.”

“But there could be a better way. One we haven’t found that will definitely work without the side effects…” Bonnie argued.

“They’re right, Bonnie,” Elena said gently, sliding her arm into Damon’s and leaning her head on his shoulder. “We’ve looked everywhere. We’ve found everything we’re going to find, and we know what this merge thing is now and where it came from. You don’t really think there’s going to be a better way, do you?”

“There’s still hope…”

“Bon-bon,” Damon said seriously. “We have to think of the kids too. The twins are ten now. How do you think this isolation is going to affect them if we keep it up. All seven of the kids are going to end up suffering for it eventually.”

“They need to be able to meet other people. To have friends outside of each other. To learn how to live in a world where we’re not alone,” Elena added. “The longer we wait, the harder it will be for them.”

Bonnie sighed sadly and leaned against her husband of twelve years as she nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. I just…It’s hard. We’ve been so happy here for so long and going back means letting go and…”

“I know, Bon,” Kai told her, kissing her head. “We’ve all found happiness here, but when all is said and done…this is still a prison.”

Bonnie took a few deep breaths for calm. “Okay. We’ll go home,” she agreed.

“Good. Since that’s settled, I’m gonna take Kai on a little trip before we go while you girls get everything organized,” Damon said with a smirk.

“You’re gonna go for it?” Elena asked with a grin.

“Gonna give it a shot, yeah,” Damon told her.

“Go for what?” Kai asked.

“There’s a cure for vampirism,” Elena told him. “In our world it was guarded by a powerful comatose witch, but here…”

“You want to be cured?” Bonnie asked surprised. She thought that Elena had come to love being a vampire and with the kids and all, it would be difficult for her to be human and them to be vampires.

“Not for us,” Damon shook his head. “We want to take it back for Stefan. If he wants it, of course.”

“With him being a ripper, being a vampire is pretty much hell for him. If anyone deserves the chance to be cured its Stefan,” Elena told them.

“Yeah, I agree,” Bonnie nodded. “Just…be careful. Both of you.” With seven kids in the house there was no way they could all go. Not with how dangerous that trip turned out to be last time. “And if by some chance Silas is there…”

“We walk away,” Damon assured her. “I know.”

“I guess this will also give me a chance to get my magic levels topped off before the trip,” Kai chuckled.

“There is that,” Elena grinned. “When are you guys leaving?”

“In the morning?” Damon asked Kai who nodded in acceptance. “We’ll probably be at least a few days. Maybe a week. It depends on how easily we can find it. It’s been a while.”

“We’ll have everything ready to go when you get back,” Bonnie assured them.

“We’ll leave the car, but do you mind if we take the RV?” Damon asked.

“Not at all. We’ll go check it this afternoon to make sure there’s nothing in there we’ll need,” Elena told them.

The next morning, they all saw the guys off. The kids were confused. None of their parents had ever been away for more than a day, but they didn’t seem to mind it really. They watched the plane take off before heading home in their two separate cars. They made a stop on the way though. There was something Elena wanted to find to make organizing their drives easier. The kids were let loose to explore the giant store with Artemis watching them to get help if it was needed. Ares had gone with Damon and Kai.

It took hours for them to find what they were looking for. A canvas bag with forty zipper compartments, twenty on each side, that could roll up for easy storage. It seemed to be designed for things like nuts and bolts and such, but could easily hold a few dozen or so thumb drives in each pocket. It would still take up quite a bit of space, but much less than any other organizational system, and it would be much better than just throwing the drives in and having to search forever to find anything.

By the time they got home, it was time for lunch. The vampire kids were very picky about what human foods they would eat, but since they didn’t actually need human food, their tastes weren’t catered to often. If they didn’t want to eat what everyone else was, they just didn’t eat. Today though, they were taken into consideration. Since it was their first time without their dad, Bonnie and Elena wanted to make sure that they felt as included as possible.

After lunch was when the real work started though. Elena was left to take care of the computer stuff while Bonnie took care of everything else. The ten year old twins were the only one of the kids that Elena trusted to help her, so they joined her while the other five stuck with Bonnie as they sorted through everything. They could only take what they could carry so most of their stuff would be left behind and between the thousand thumb drives and the dozen hard drives, that took up a lot of their available space.

The hardest part of the process was sorting and storing the thumb drives. They were currently only sorted by region, which was still a nightmare when they wanted to find something specific. She taught the twins the basics of the labeling code that they’d had to use given the lack of space to write on the drives. GC for Gemini Coven, NO for New Orleans, MY for Mayan, AZ for Aztec, IC, for Incan, VK for Viking, TV for travelers, and so on. The rest of the code she dealt with as they sorted them that far. It ended up taking days to finish and then it was getting that and the hard drives packed up safely so they wouldn’t be damaged in what might be a bumpy ride.

When that was finally done, she started working on Damon’s and her stuff, deciding what to take and what to leave. There wasn’t a lot they wanted to take though. Damon’s best tux, the dress she’d worn for their first fancy night on the Eiffel Tower, and of course her wedding dress. Just in case her girls ever wanted to wear it for their own weddings. She also grabbed a few changes of clothes for both them and the kids, just in case it took a few days to get some more, but the rest of their clothes could be replaced.

Some of the kid’s artwork and projects were packed up carefully as well as a few other keepsakes from their younger years and that was it. Each of the kids were given a small grocery bag for anything they wanted to keep, like toys or stuffed animals, which then filled another large duffel bag. By the time they were done, All four of their camping backpacks were filled along with six large duffel bags, and just in time for Damon and Kai’s return.

“Did you get it?” Elena asked hopefully.

Damon held up a small box. “Yep. Got it,” he grinned. “With Kai able to take down the protective magic and no Silas or traitorous teammates it was a cakewalk.”

“Well other than the hiking through the forest for three days looking for the damn entrance,” Kai snorted.

“Poor baby,” Bonnie teased with a fake pout as she ran her hands through his hair. He gave her a more real pout before kissing hers away.

“So are we ready to go or do you need our help?” Damon asked.

“We’re ready, but feel free to take a walk through the house and make sure there’s nothing else you want to take,” Elena told them.

Once they finished that, and took a moment for lunch, they headed for the spot that Kai had scouted out and they had excavated years ago waiting for this moment. All four of the adults had a big camping pack on their backs and the gathered the other luggage, the kids, and Artemis in the center of the circle, with Ares on Damon’s shoulder. Once they were all settled and Bonnie made sure that everyone was within the circle of light, she took the ascendant from Kai and cut her hand, dripping her blood on the device as she chanted a spell to take them home.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a bright flash of light and they found themselves standing in a large garden, but they could see their house on the other side. Sort of. “Well…looks like Stefan’s been doing some construction,” Damon chuckled. 

“Why though?” Elena asked amusedly as they picked up their bags and started walking. “I mean…this is like a whole compound now or something.”

“There’s no telling with Stefan,” Bonnie rolled her eyes. “Why don’t we just go find out?” 

Damon and Elena each picked up two of the duffel bags, leaving the lighter ones for Kai and Bonnie to grab one each as they started trudging to the house, Artemis circling them nervously. “Easy Artemis. No attacking unless something else does first and then just subdue unless I tell you otherwise,” Elena told her. 

“Same goes to you, Ares,” Damon told the bird before it took flight.

They didn’t encounter anyone else on the short walk and Damien was the first to hit the door and open it, but then he couldn’t get in. “Daddy, why can’t I get in?” he asked worriedly, lip starting to quiver. 

They all set their bags down as Damon crouched in front of his son while Bonnie rang the bell. “Hey it’s okay, buddy. Remember we explained that we were coming back to a different world with other people? We just need to get invited in.”

“Wanna go home,” four year old Lynn cried. 

MG had walked up in time to hear Damon’s explanation and his heart melted at the toddler’s tears. “Hey, it’s okay little one,” he said gently. “I’ll go get someone to invite you in.” 

Damon looked up at the boy curiously and a little suspiciously. “Who are you?” he asked. 

“I’m MG and…oh my god…” his eyes widened. “You’re Damon Salvatore! Hang on. I’ll go get Dr. Saltzman. Wait here,” he said before blurring away. 

“Well that was interesting,” Elena chuckled. “At least Ric’s here, so that means whatever is going on isn’t dangerous.”

“That’s a plus,” Kai said, feeling more than a little out of place as he shifted almost behind everyone else. 

When Damon saw Ric rushing for the door, he grinned. “You know, when I told you to compel yourself a PhD I was kidding,” he teased. 

Ric stopped in his tracks as he saw them and his eyes went wide. “I guess that answers the question of if you’re really you…” he said as he blinked a few times before rushing forward and crashing into Damon with a hug, which Damon happily returned, even picking Ric up for a moment. 

As soon as he let go of Damon, he grabbed Elena, who was sending mental commands to Artemis to stand down as she hugged him back just as tightly with tears in her eyes. “We missed you, Ric.” 

Ric even bestowed a hug on Bonnie as he asked, “How is this possible? You all died like, sixteen years ago.”

“That’s a long story,” Damon chuckled. “Maybe we could talk inside?” 

“Right. Yeah. Of course. Come in, all of you,” Ric said, eyeing the children curiously but deciding to wait until they were in his office before asking. 

“What is this place?” Bonnie asked as she saw teenagers running around and magic being displayed while they walked through the halls. 

Ric grinned, as he glanced back. “Welcome to the Salvatore Boarding School for the Young and Gifted.” 

“Wow,” Elena said. “That’s awesome.” 

“Thanks Elena,” Ric said happily. 

“So where’s Stefan? He around?” Damon asked. 

“And Jeremy? How’s he?” Elena asked. 

“And Caroline,” Bonnie chimed in. “Don’t forget her.”

Ric laughed and shook his head. “They are all still around, just not here at the moment. I’ll help you get back in contact. Everyone is good though,” he told them as they entered his office. “For now I’d rather have some introductions…”

“Right,” Damon chuckled. “You know my wife obviously. This is my oldest son, Damien Jeremy Salvatore. He’s seven. Then there’s Stefanie Alaria Salvatore…”

“Aftew bof Daddy’s bwovers,” Stefanie chimed in with a smile. 

Ric’s breath hitched at that. To think that after all this time Damon still considered him a brother and even named his kid after him and told them about him. He didn’t have much time to process that before Damon continued though, “Yes, after both my brothers,” he chuckled. “She’s five. Then Carolyn Eliza Salvatore is four. Named after Elena’s and my best friends.”

“Hey!” Bonnie said playfully. 

“That weren’t with us every day,” Elena added amusedly. 

“And I guess it’s my turn. This is my husband Kai and our kids. Malakai Rudolphus and Gabriel Remus Bennett are ten. Carolina Rose Bennett is seven, and Serenity Dawn Bennett is five,” Bonnie introduced her brood. 

“So they’re Bennetts and not…” Ric looked at Kai curiously. He looked familiar but he couldn’t quite place him. 

“Let’s just say that I would like nothing more than to distance myself from the horrors of my past, so we all took their mother’s name instead of using Parker,” Kai said with a shrug. 

Ric gasped and took a few steps back, looking at Kai in horror. “Malakai Parker…no...”

When he reached for his desk drawer, Damon blurred over to grab his arm. “If you even think about doing what I think you’re about to do, I will make you regret it,” Damon said seriously. 

“Do you know who he is? What he’s done?” Ric asked incredulously. 

Kai winced as a look of pain washed over his face and he stepped in front of Bonnie and the kids. Not that he expected Damon to let him attack, but better safe than sorry. Before anyone could say anything else though, Elena interrupted. “Before we get into this, is there anywhere the kids can go while we talk?” 

Ric didn’t take his eyes off Kai as he nodded. He jerked his hand away from Damon and reached slowly for the intercom on his desk and called in someone named Emma, and she came in a moment later. “Would you mind taking these kids into the next room and watching them for a little while?” he asked her tightly. 

“Of course. Is everything okay?” she asked. 

“I’ll fill you in later,” Ric told her. 

“Artemis, go with them,” Elena said and the jaguar didn’t hesitate to do so. When she noticed both Emma and Ric looking nervously at the big cat, she told them, “She’s perfectly safe. Think of her like a familiar. She won’t hurt anyone unless they hurt one of us and she has orders to subdue first unless I tell her otherwise.” 

“Okay. Good enough,” Emma said with a welcoming smile. “Come on Artemis.” She did love animals and a familiar was special.

Once the door was closed behind Emma, Bonnie chanted a spell. “Privacy spell. So little vampire ears can’t overhear.”

“Good. Now why don’t you tell me how you can possibly associate with a psychopathic serial killer?!” Ric asked incredulously. 

“Are you talking about me or him?” Damon asked pointedly, reminding Ric that he had been no better in the past. 

“You’re different,” Ric shook his head. 

“You’re right, I am,” Damon said crossing his arms, going into full defensive mode. Even now, the memory of what he’d done hit Kai hard and he wasn’t likely to defend himself. “I’m very different because I wasn’t systematically abused and degraded my entire life by everyone who should have cared about me.”

“And you think…” Ric tried to argue, but was cut of by Elena getting in on it.

“Imagine what it would be like to spend your entire life being told how worthless you are, how you’re a defective freak, how your very existence is a mistake, while being beaten daily by your father, shunned and degraded by your mother and siblings, treated like a pariah in your community…and then find out that they’re going to throw you away like garbage to a prison world to live in complete isolation for the rest of eternity,” Elena said hatefully. 

“I was scared,” Kai jumped in, taking the comfort his wife was offering for this conversation. “Terrified even. The only thing I had to look forward to for so long was the merge. The chance to prove that I wasn’t worthless. Even if I lost at least I would have peace, but a prison world…I panicked. I snapped. All I could think was that if I was the last…the only option…then they couldn’t throw me away. They would have to give me a chance.”

“All this just because he happened to be born a siphoner,” Bonnie sneered. “Can you even imagine what that must have been like for him?” 

Ric was more than a little taken aback. This was very different than the story his wife told, but it was clear that Damon, Elena, and Bonnie believed it. “They sent you to the prison world because of what you did,” Ric said despite the doubt that crept into his voice and mind. 

“Come on, Ric. You run a school for witches. You have to have some idea what it takes to create a prison world,” Bonnie scoffed. 

“He was sent there less than twenty four hours after what happened,” Damon pointed out. “There’s no way they could have gotten everything set up and created in that time. It had been planned all along.” 

Ric couldn’t argue with that. It was something that he had looked into quite a bit over the years. He had just never lined the dates up. That was one point in favor of his story at least. He considered what his wife had said, that Kai was always a difficult child and that he couldn’t be around other people and how he tended to lash out and the other kids were afraid of him. If he was really being treated like that, it would make sense. He had to believe that Jo didn’t know about that though. It would make sense for the parents to hide that part from the rest of the kids. He tried to remember if Jo had mentioned anything horrible that Kai had done before the massacre, but was coming up blank. “That still doesn’t make it right though,” he had to say. 

“No, it doesn’t,” Kai said hauntedly. “And if I could take it back, I would do it in a second. It is and will always be my greatest regret. I’m not the same person I was then though. Between eighteen years of isolation before they got there and then finding love and having a family…Look…If you don’t want me here I’ll go. All I want is to live in peace.”

“If you go, we’re going with you, little brother,” Damon said firmly, reaching a hand to Kai’s shoulder. 

“Damn straight,” Elena nodded as Bonnie snuggled to Kai’s side. Her opinion was obvious anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

Ric was more than glad that his wife wasn’t here this afternoon and intended to talk to her about all this privately at some point, but for now he had a decision to make. An impossible decision at that. All he could think was how easy it would have been for his girls to end up in Kai’s position. They were both siphoners too and were often treated differently because of it. “I can’t make a permanent decision right now, but for now, you’re welcome here. We’ll see about the future.”

They all nodded. That was the best they could hope for. Ric was trusting Kai because they did but reserving final judgement. “I can live with that,” Kai told him. 

“So…now that’s out of the way…how are vampire children possible?” Ric asked, getting back to his biggest question since the question of where they’d been was clearly answered by Kai’s presence. 

“During our time in the prison world, we travelled around looking for lost knowledge and stuff and stumbled across an elixir that would let vampires procreate,” Elena explained. 

“Is that something you plan to share?” Ric asked worriedly. While there were some that he could see giving it to, the idea of any vampires ending up able to have kids scared the crap out of him.

“We couldn’t even if we wanted to,” Damon shrugged. “There were only two doses that we took and most of the ingredients to make more are extinct now.”

“Wait…how old was this elixir?” Ric asked. 

“Best we could date the ruins it was from the late thirteen hundreds,” Kai told him. 

“And you just happened to find two doses sitting around?” Ric asked skeptically. That was one hell of a coincidence. 

“The Incan tribe that made them had a vampire couple that set themselves up as gods,” Bonnie told the story. “They were the ones that asked the witches to create a way for them to have a baby, but they got killed before the witches figured it out. You know how people are with their gods though. They were sure that they would be back and finished the job and hid it away for their return.”

“But since they were vampires and not gods they never came back for it, which left it there for you two,” Ric nodded. “But then if it was there in the prison world, wouldn’t it be in this one too?” 

Damon snorted. “Are you really going to let word get out about a miracle elixir that only two vampires can ever get their hands on and watch a full scale war erupt over it?” 

“Yeah, no,” Ric shook his head. “So you two took the only doses in existence,” he agreed to the story. “Could it be taken from you like the cure?” 

“Nope. It’s a part of our DNA now,” Elena explained. “It’s not in our bloodstream at all anymore.”

“That’s good. That means you won’t have people after your blood or anything,” Ric sighed. “What about your kids? Would they inherit it from you?” 

“No,” Damon shook his head. “They are normal vampires in every way, except for the fact that they will age to adulthood.” 

“Pardon me for a moment while my headmaster side jumps in,” Ric chuckled. “But will you be looking to enroll them here?” 

“You have both witches and vampires at this school?” Bonnie asked curiously. “Every school we saw in the prison world was only for one or the other.”

“We are all about inclusivity here. We have witches, vampires, werewolves, and even a phoenix. Any supernatural child is welcome here,” Ric told them. 

“Then yes, we would definitely consider it,” Elena nodded. “The last thing we want is for the kids to end up at separate schools. We were going to just find a normal school for them and teach them the rest at home, but this place is definitely worth looking into.” 

“I have to wonder how you manage to keep control though with so many different groups,” Damon asked. 

“It does get trying at times,” Ric admitted. “But we don’t have too many problems. The witches on staff are helpful with the enchantments that keep us notified of any issues so we can defuse them before it gets out of hand.”

“How many supernatural teachers do you have?” Bonnie asked.

“We have five witches on the faculty,” Ric told her. 

“What about vampires? Werewolves?” Damon asked. 

“They’re not as easy to find in the first place, much less finding ones that can be trusted around a school full of children and are willing to teach,” Ric pointed out. 

“So you have five witches to control how many kids?” Elena asked in shock. 

“We currently have almost five hundred students. But it’s not just witches. We also have twenty other human faculty members,” Ric explained. 

“Humans expected to deal with moody vampires, rowdy werewolves, and pissy witches?” Damon scoffed. 

“I hate to say it, but Damon has a point,” Bonnie said. “I mean, teaching them, sure. That’s all well and good, but they can’t be expected to keep control when things get out of hand.” 

“We do have a failsafe for if things go badly enough,” Ric admitted, hoping that they would take the idea as well as other nervous parents did.

“What kind of failsafe?” Elena asked curiously. 

“There is an artifact that, when activated, nullifies all magic in the area so the kids are no different than humans during that time. Then once we get control back, we can turn it off and things go back to normal.” 

“What kind of artifact?” Kai was the first to ask, as fear crept into all four of them. 

“It’s something we confiscated from the travelers…” was as far as Ric got. 

“Please tell me you don’t mean a fontána duše,” Bonnie asked in horror. 

“A what?” Ric asked confused. 

“A fountain made of thirteen human skulls and runs off the blood of infants,” Elena explained. 

“That sounds like it, yes,” Ric nodded slowly. 

Damon exploded as the others just gaped in disgust. “Damnit Ric! What the hell are you thinking?!” he turned to Elena, needing to get her moving. “Elena…get the kids and get them the hell out of here. Now.” 

“Wait,” Kai chimed in. “Go with her and take ours too. You’re fast enough to get them far away…” Damon nodded curtly and followed Elena into the next room as Kai turned back to Ric. “You have the gall to sit there and judge me for a horrible mistake while you keep an abomination like that in a school full of children?” 

“It’s just a failsafe. It’s never even been used,” Ric pointed out. “And if it’s needed it will be to save the lives of those children.” 

“You have no idea do you,” Bonnie said disgustedly as she reached for one of the bags that had all been left behind in their haste to save the children. She was going to show him exactly what he’d done here. 

“What happened?” Emma asked worriedly as she stepped back into the room, followed by Artemis. “The other two just rushed in, grabbed all the kids, and jumped out the window and blurred away.” 

“We’re having a difference of opinion about the failsafe at the moment,” Ric told her. 

“Damnit,” Bonnie snapped. “Do you know how Elena has all this organized?” she asked Kai. 

“Not really. I know she had it organized by region before, but…” he shrugged. 

Bonnie continued searching through, pulling one or two drives out of each pocket before moving on. “Here we go. Travelers,” she finally said. “There’s just the basic stuff here.”

“She probably has the darker stuff separate,” Kai suggested. “Check the next one. Or the one across from it.”

“Aha,” Bonnie said finding what would probably be the right pocket. “Let’s see…Dark spells…dark theory…dark objects…”

When she kept looking, Ric asked, “Wouldn’t that be it? Dark objects?” 

Kai snorted. “There is a big difference between dark magic and black magic. Especially when dealing with the travelers.”

“Black theory…here we go. Black objects,” Bonnie grabbed it. “Do you mind?” she asked Ric gesturing to his computer and he slid back a bit out of the way. Bonnie plugged the thumb drive in and scrolled through until she found it. “There. Go ahead and read a little bit about what you brought into a school full of children,” she said angrily. 

“Soul fountain, also known as the soul /eater/?” Ric gasped as he read, and the picture left no doubt that this was the same object. 

“See what the travelers don’t tell people is that anyone, human or supernatural, who dies within the sphere of influence of this thing, active or not, has their souls consumed and the power fed to the traveler collective,” Kai said. 

“They market these things to xenophobic bigots who have more fear than sense and don’t care about how black the magic is if it subjugates the supernatural,” Bonnie snapped. 

“I didn’t know…” Ric breathed out horrified. 

“Oh there’s a lot more,” Bonnie said heatedly.


	4. Chapter 4

“How much worse could it get?” Emma asked reading over Ric’s shoulder. 

“Skip ahead a few pages and you’ll see what it does to supernaturals if it’s left running for more than a couple days,” Kai said coldly. “Vampires age drastically fast until they turn to dust within a week, witches are consumed by their own magic in the same amount of time, werewolves…well they’ll last until the next full moon before the attempted change literally rips their bodies into pieces.”

“Even having it on for a short time can have serious side effects,” Bonnie pointed out flipping the page. 

“Ric, we have to get this thing out of here,” Emma said fearfully. 

“Yes. We do. So let’s go. Where is it?” Kai asked already moving for the door. 

“Hang on. We can’t be hasty about this,” Ric said. “We need an actual plan here.” 

“Let me point out to you that Damon Salvatore also knows this thing is here, and you know how unpredictable he can be,” Bonnie told him. “And when his kids are put in danger? In his home?”

“I mean, I would hope he would be smart enough not to just find it and smash it to pieces,” Kai said, “But you never know with him when he loses his temper.” 

“Right. Let’s go,” Ric said worriedly rushing out the door. If nothing else they had to guard it to stop Damon from doing something stupid. 

“Out of curiosity, what would happen if he smashed it?” Emma asked as she followed them. 

“A crater probably about two miles wide as all of that black magic explodes,” Bonnie said. They rushed into the tunnel underneath the school, and Kai immediately froze and shuddered as it came into view. “You okay, babe?” Bonnie asked worriedly. 

“God, that magic makes my skin crawl,” Kai shook it off and stepped closer. 

“You can feel it?” Emma asked. 

“I’m a siphoner. I can sense magic and feel it in the air, yes,” Kai explained. This was even worse than the curse that protected their hideout. “I’m guessing you don’t have a traveler witch in residence?” he asked Ric as he realized what he would have to do. 

“No, I don’t,” Ric admitted. 

“Then I’m going to have to siphon it,” Kai sighed. 

“Kai, no!” Bonnie cried as she took his face in her hands. “It killed you the last time and you can’t resurrect here.” 

Kai reached his hands to her cheeks and leaned his forehead against hers. “I don’t have a choice, Bon. Without traveler magic to dispel it, this is the only way to keep all those kids up there safe.” 

“He’s right,” a voice called from behind them and they all turned to see Damon walk up with a look of pain on his face. When Kai faced him, Damon put his hands on Kai’s shoulders and said seriously, “But we’re not going to let you die little brother. We’ll find a way to save you. No matter what it takes.” 

“Thank you, brother,” Kai said with a smile, knowing it would be a long shot either way. “But if I don’t make it…”

“I’ll take care of your kids like my own,” Damon promised. “And I’ll take care of Bon-bon like my own too,” he joked suggestively trying to lighten the mood. 

“Only if you want me to try out that castration spell I found,” Bonnie chuckled with tears in her eyes.

Once Kai stepped away from Damon, Bonnie rushed into his arms. “Please don’t do this,” she begged. “I can’t lose you.”

Kai ran his fingers through her hair soothingly as he kissed her head. “If one life is the cost for five hundred kids, how can I not?” he asked softly, tears falling down his own cheeks too. “It’s okay, baby,” he whispered. “I got a chance to be happy. A chance to live. I found you, and our kids…what more could I ask for out of life? And now I can make sure all those kids up there get that same chance…” 

Bonnie nodded and pulled back to look in his eyes. “I love you Malakai Bennett. Never forget that.” 

“Are you sure this is the only way?” Ric asked worriedly, completely sold on Kai’s goodness now and not wanting him to die. 

“Without a traveler witch, yes,” he nodded. 

“What if there were more than one siphon witch?” Emma asked, hating the idea, but if it would guarantee all of their survival it was worth a chance. 

“Emma no!” Ric shook his head. “It’s too dangerous, they’re just kids.” 

“He’s right,” Kai said. “There is no way I’m involving kids in this. It might save my life or it might kill us all. It’s not worth the risk.” He turned to Damon. “If they do have siphoners here make sure Elena gets them our information on them.” 

“I will,” Damon promised. 

“Okay here goes…whatever happens, make sure that my hand doesn’t lose contact until it’s done,” Kai looked seriously at them all and when he got nods all around, he knelt down to make it easier and not have as far to fall. He took a deep breath before putting his hand to the side of the fountain and he almost immediately started to tremble. 

Bonnie fell to her knees at his side and took his other hand in hers. When she felt him pulling magic from her as his trembling slowed she told Damon. “He needs more spirit magic to help him fight.” Damon nodded and rushed forward, grabbing Kai’s arm above Bonnie’s hands and letting him pull from him too. 

“Can I help?” Emma asked hopefully. 

“You’re a witch?” Bonnie asked and Emma nodded. “Come touch him. Anywhere on his skin. Let him siphon magic from you.” 

“I’ll get the other witch teachers,” Ric offered. 

“No, there’s no time,” Bonnie shook her head as Kai started convulsing. Damon let go of Kai’s arm and blurred to his other side to grab his hand and hold it against the fountain. Bonnie moved so that Kai was on his side with his head in her lap as he started vomiting black blood and this time it was coming out of his eyes and nose too. 

“What happens if he lets go?” Ric asked fearfully. 

“A magical backlash that will take out this entire school,” Damon told him. “Once it’s started, he has to finish.” 

“He’s burning up,” Emma said worriedly as her hand on the back of his neck felt like it was on fire and she was having trouble keeping contact as he convulsed and then he was still and unconscious. Damon continued holding his hand against the fountain until it crumbled to dust. 

“Damon…”

“I got him,” Damon didn’t need Bonnie to finish that statement as he bent and picked Kai up, one arm under his knees and the other around his back. Bonnie leaned Kai’s head against Damon’s shoulder as he turned around. “Where can we take him?” 

“The infirmary…” Ric started to suggest. 

“Somewhere more private,” Bonnie argued. 

“There’s an empty dorm room on the first floor,” Emma suggested and when Bonnie nodded she and Ric led them there. 

Ric was waylaid before they got there though by Dorian. “Ric, thank god we found you. Something’s wrong with Jo.” 

“What happened?” Ric asked. 

“We don’t know. She just collapsed and started throwing up black sludge just like…”

“I got it,” Ric cut him off. Just like Lizzie and Josie did when one of them used darker magics. “Have them keep her stabilized, but she’ll be okay.” How could he have forgotten that Kai was her twin? He was kicking himself for it now. At least he knew that she couldn’t die with Kai. Just end up with some backwash of his symptoms. He would be more useful helping with Kai if there was anything he could do. That would help them both. 

Once Damon got him laid down in the bed, Bonnie told him, “Since the thing is gone will you go get Elena and the kids? Just in case…” she couldn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t even suggest saying goodbye right now. 

“Yeah. I will. You’ll be okay?” Damon asked worriedly. 

“Ric and Emma will help me,” Bonnie said in a tone of voice that clearly meant ‘or else’. 

“Can’t you just heal him with vampire blood?” Ric suggested. 

Damon shook his head. “I tried that last time and it just made him worse. Something about the different magics fighting a war in his body already and adding vampire blood just destabilized them both or something.” He shrugged. “Magical theory isn’t my strong suit,” he admitted. “But it would still be very bad.”

“Right,” Ric nodded as Damon blurred away. There went his idea of using tribrid blood too. If vampire blood caused that kind of reaction there was no reason to think tribrid blood would be any better. “What can I do?” he asked Bonnie. 

“I need a blanket. Something absorbent. Cotton or wool. Soak it in cold water,” Bonnie told him. When he rushed off to do that, Bonnie told Emma, “In the office there is a canvas folding case full of thumb drives…bring that to me?” She had noticed a computer in the room and an idea for a spell that she saw once dawned on her. Emma nodded and rushed off to do that while Bonnie started casting diagnostic spells. She hadn’t been able to do this last time and maybe she would get a better idea of how to help him now.


	5. Chapter 5

“I’ve got it,” Emma got back minutes later. 

“I think it was the third pocket on the right or maybe the fourth…all of the drives will start with the letters NO,” Bonnie told her. “I need the drive with NO FQ DM” After her diagnostics she was almost positive that this spell would at least help a little bit. 

“Here you go,” Emma found it after a minute and Bonnie grabbed it from her hand and went to the computer in the corner and plugged it in. 

“Get me some candles, please,” Bonnie said as she flipped through the images looking for one in particular. As Emma left to do that, Ric came back with the wet blankets. “Wrap them around him,” Bonnie told Ric without looking away from the screen. “We need to help keep his temperature down as much as possible.” 

“He’s really burning up,” Ric said worriedly as he wrapped the cold wet towels around Kai. 

When Kai started convulsing again, Bonnie said, “Turn him on his side,” even though Ric was already doing so. “Here it is,” Bonnie found the spell and grabbed a notebook and pen from the desk and started jotting it down so she could take it over there with her. “I need a dagger. Non-magical.” Ric just pulled one from his belt and handed it over as Emma came back with the candles. 

It only took Bonnie a minute to get the candles arranged before she took the dagger and pulled it over her palm, letting a few drops of her blood fall on Kai’s forehead as she chanted a spell and the candles flared. “That’s dark magic,” Emma gasped as the alert pinged her mind. 

“Dark magic has it’s place,” Bonnie told her before casting another round of diagnostic spells over her comatose husband. 

“Isn’t that how we got into this mess in the first place?” Ric muttered. 

“That was black magic. That never has a place. Especially black traveler magic. Dark magic is completely different,” Bonnie snapped before doing the same dark spell again, dripping a little more blood on Kai’s forehead as blood dripped from her nose as well. It had been a long time since she’d pushed herself this close to her limits. She still did one more round of the spell before she collapsed. 

Ric caught Bonnie and helped her to the other bed in the room since she was still semi-conscious. “Are you okay?” he asked. 

“I will be. I just need to rest…something to eat to rebuild my strength wouldn’t go amiss if you don’t mind,” Bonnie said wearily. “He should be okay now. At least for a little while.” 

“I’ll go grab you something,” Ric said as he headed out. He was more than familiar with the best foods to help a drained witch get their strength back. 

“What did that spell do?” Emma asked curiously as she sat next to Bonnie on the bed. 

“Lowers the body temperature and consumes magic,” Bonnie told her. “It was designed to use against vampires. With their lower body temperature to begin with, it would freeze them temporarily while consuming the magic that let them survive in death. The consumption of magic is what makes it dark.”

“So it’s consuming the black magic here instead of the rest?” Emma asked curiously. 

“No, it’s consuming it all, but it starts with the strongest magic, which in this case is the black magic which is obvious by his state. Using this spell on a normal witch would kill them. Or on someone who wasn’t running a massive fever. But he’s a siphoner, so losing the rest of the magic along with the black magic won’t hurt him and lowering his body temperature is rather necessary in this case,” Bonnie explained. 

“I see what you mean about dark magic having it’s place,” Ric said as he came in with a bowl of oatmeal, a banana, and a protein drink.

“Thank you,” Bonnie said as she took it from him. “Would someone mind checking on him?” 

Emma went over as Ric took her place next to Bonnie on the bed. “I’m sorry,” Ric told her. “I shouldn’t have brought that here. I didn’t know though.”

“His fever is down, but not gone, but he’s still unconscious,” Emma told her. 

Bonnie nodded her thanks at Emma as she addressed Ric. “You should have,” Bonnie said irritated, but without the heat from earlier. “Even if you didn’t know what it did, you know that it was made with human skulls and used human blood, even if you didn’t know it was from babies. That should have been enough to tell you how dark it was. And then the fact that it came from the travelers, who you know deal in soul magic and whose mission it is to destroy the spirit magic…what were you thinking Ric?” 

Ric sighed. “I was thinking that I wanted this school to be a safe place. That a handful of witches could never control so many supernatural kids…”

“So you took a shortcut,” Bonnie said bluntly. “And put every child in your care at risk by doing it.” 

“You’re right,” Ric sighed. “It was stupid. And I’m sorry that your husband is paying the price for it.” 

“How is he?” Elena barreled into the room and fell to her knees by Kai’s side. 

“He’ll be okay. I remembered a spell from one of the French Quarter witches that helped,” Bonnie told her. “I might need to do it a few more times, but it’s working.” 

“He’s definitely not as bad off as last time,” Elena realized, brushing a hand over Kai’s forehead before pressing a kiss there, avoiding all the blood. “You self-sacrificing idiot,” she muttered. 

“Where are the kids?” Bonnie asked. 

“They’re next door with Artemis,” Damon said from the doorway. “We wanted to make sure that he was fit for company and wouldn’t scare them to death before we let them in and it’s a good thing we did,” he chuckled as he grabbed the side of one of the wet blankets and started cleaning up Kai’s face. Between the black blood that he was expelling during the siphon, Bonnie’s blood that she had dripped on him during her spells, and the massive amounts of sweat that had been pouring from him, he was a gruesome mess. Elena smiled and grabbed another edge of the blanket to help and they soon had him cleaned up. 

“Thank you guys,” Bonnie said relieved. “I’ve been too busy to think to do that…”

“Hey, you’ve been saving his life,” Elena chuckled. “That kinda takes precedence. The least we can do is clean him up.” 

“If he’s gonna be okay, I need to go check in at the infirmary,” Ric said as he got up. “I’ll be back to check on you guys in a little while.” 

When Ric got to the infirmary, he found Jo already waking up. “Ric? What happened?” she asked confused and worried. 

“It’s a very long story and should probably be done in private if you feel up to heading to our rooms?” Ric asked her. 

“Yeah. I’m still feeling weak, but much better,” she told him so he helped her up and back to their rooms. 

“Okay, so this is going to be hard for you to hear, but you need to know. Especially now,” Ric said nervously, not sure where to start. 

“It’s about Malakai isn’t it?” she asked fearfully. “He’s back somehow…That was a twin thing…he’s doing black magic…we have to stop him, Ric…” she was starting to panic. 

“Hey, hey. Shh. It’s okay. It’s not what you think. Just relax,” Ric tried to calm her. 

“If it wasn’t Kai doing black magic then…” Jo asked as she calmed down. 

Ric realized that she needed the information about the now before the information about the past, as hard as that was going to be to explain. “Okay, yes it is about Malakai, and yes he is back, but he’s not the same as you remember,” Ric said gently, rubbing her arms as she started to tense up again. “I don’t know what he was really like back then, but the man I met today was far from evil. He’s a loving husband and father who put his life on the line and nearly died to save the entire school full of kids even after he got his own kids far away.” 

“That’s not…Kai would never…I don’t…” Jo was beyond confused so Ric told her the story that he had been told about how things happened back then. “But…he was sent to the prison world /because/ of what he did…” she thought confusedly. 

“Tell me what happened during the creation of the nineteen oh eight prison world,” Ric asked her as he had been thinking it over ever since. 

“There was a ship that had been slaughtered by heretic vampires led by a ripper. The coven placed a barrier around the ship for the week that it took to create and power the prison world…” she gasped. “Oh my god…it took the entire coven a week to create that prison world. There were only a handful of them…it would have been impossible to do in a day.” 

“Which means they were telling the truth,” Ric pointed out. 

“Oh god,” Jo breathed out. “I didn’t know…I swear I didn’t…that he was being abused like that. I don’t think the other kids knew either.” That changed things. She wasn’t sure how and she definitely wasn’t ready to forgive and forget no matter how much he’d changed since then. But she owed it to him to give him a chance at least. To see him. To talk to him. To get his side of the story. She owed it to them both.


	6. Chapter 6

“So what actually happened today?” Jo asked Ric. 

“It turned out that our failsafe device was a lot worse than any of us realized,” Ric explained everything about what it did that he had learned and she was absolutely horrified. 

“I told you that was a bad idea,” she huffed. She had been against bringing that here in the first place. The entire setup just screamed danger. 

“And you were right. Once I learned about what it did, I knew that we had to get rid of it, but had no idea how. Since we didn’t have any way to dispel the magic without a traveler witch, Kai siphoned it.”

“Oh god…that’s why…is he okay?” she asked, not really sure what she wanted the answer to be. 

“His wife managed to save his life. At least so far. He’s still fighting the effects. But he fully expected to die,” Ric explained. 

“His wife?” Jo had missed that part before. “And you said kids? But he was in a prison world.” 

“Yeah, that’s where things get interesting. You remember how I told you about the other side collapsing and our friends that were lost when it did?” 

“Yeah. Damon Salvatore was one of them,” Jo remembered. 

“Well they ended up getting shunted to his prison world somehow. I don’t have the details on that. We didn’t quite get that far,” he chuckled. “They’ve apparently been living there for the last sixteen years. Damon and his girlfriend Elena were married as was Kai and Bonnie Bennett…”

“A Bennett?!” Jo sucked in a sharp breath. “That explains how they were able to get back. The Bennett line is the only one with the power over the prison worlds.”

“Kai and Bonnie have four kids and Damon and Elena have three. I was in the process of trying to talk them into coming to school here when we got sidetracked by the fountain,” Ric told her. “That’s pretty much all I got.”

“I want to see him,” Jo decided, heart beating in fear at just the thought, but she needed to do this. 

“I’ll take you,” Ric said as he helped her up and they headed that way. Ric knocked softly on the door which was soon opened by Damon who looked curiously at the woman with him but opened the door the rest of the way to let them in. “Guys this is my wife, Jo…Kai’s twin sister.” 

Every eye in the room widened except for Kai’s since he was still unconscious. Even Emma had heard about Jo’s evil brother and she tried to make the stories fit with the man she met today and she just couldn’t. Still she knew when it was none of her business. “I think I should go and let you deal with the family issues. I need to see to my charges anyway,” she said as she made her escape. 

The tension settled in the room so thick it could be cut with a knife as they all tried to figure out where Jo stood. Finally she was the one to break the ice. “Ric told me the story of what happened all those years ago. I never knew how bad it was for him, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get over what he did either. He’s still my brother though. My twin. I owe it to both of us to at least talk to him. And…I want to be here for this…and get to know you all, and him through you…if that’s okay.”

Damon and Elena looked to Bonnie. As Kai’s wife, they would follow her lead. Bonnie just smiled and got up. “All he’s ever wanted was a chance. And as long as you’re willing to give him that, that’s all we can ask for,” she said as she opened her arms in invitation for a hug. 

Jo smiled and hugged her loosely. She liked her brother’s wife at least. She assumed this was Bonnie anyway since the other girl was cuddled with Damon. “Thank you. Bonnie, right?” When she nodded, Jo looked to the other two. “Which means you must be Elena, and everyone knows Damon Salvatore,” she chuckled. 

Damon laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, about that. The kid that answered the door when we got here…he looked like he had a bit of a case of hero worship when he recognized me…care to explain that, brother?” he asked Ric amusedly. 

“Well, this is the /Salvatore/ school,” Ric shrugged. “And since you died…or so we thought…there are a lot of stories, some even bordering on legend, going around.”

“Don’t forget to show them the Damon Salvatore Memorial Library when you do the tour,” Jo chimed in with an amused grin, enjoying her husband’s discomfort. “There’s a giant portrait above the fireplace even.” 

Elena burst into laughter as Damon groaned. “A library? You couldn’t think of anything cooler to put my name on?” 

“Well something tells me the Damon Salvatore Memorial Orgy Room would be inappropriate for a school,” Bonnie jabbed. 

Elena nearly fell off the bed laughing at that and this time Jo and Ric joined her as Damon threw a pillow at Bonnie. “I meant like a game room or a gym or hell…even a dorm,” he laughed. 

“You know that nobody buys that playboy routine right?” Elena said as she got her laughter under control. “We all know that you’re a closet bibliophile. Even if anyone doubted it, cleaning out your room would have given them all the clues they needed.”

“She’s got you there, buddy,” Ric said. “I mean, the house already had a library and your room was still full of books. So yes. You get the library.”

Jo wasn’t done embarrassing her husband yet though. “And we also have to make sure to hit the Elena Gilbert Memorial Medical Wing and the Bonnie Bennett Memorial Gardens,” she added. “Those don’t have portraits though.” 

Bonnie and Elena both looked at Ric in surprise before taking turns hugging him. “Thank you, Ric,” Elena said with tears in her eyes. Ric was clearly sheepish, but still returned their hugs happily. “And I understand why you wouldn’t want to distract your students with portraits of our beauty,” she couldn’t help but joke. 

“God, you’ve been hanging around your husband too long,” Ric chuckled shaking his head. “Truth was, we couldn’t afford those kinds of portraits. Not without taking away from the school budget for other more important things. Damon’s portrait we just had to have restored.”

“Oh no,” Damon groaned. “Please tell me you didn’t use that horrible thing from the old estate.”

“The one with you in your confederate uniform? Yep,” Ric smirked. “It was your brother’s idea.”

“Stefan,” Damon huffed. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“No you’re not,” Elena laughed. “You’re gonna hug the stuffing out of him and tell him how much you missed him.”

“You’re right,” Damon nodded. “Then I’m gonna kill him.” 

“Whatever you say, dear,” Elena teased. 

“What is this? Pick on Damon day?” Damon asked ruefully. 

“Don’t you know? Every day is pick on Damon day,” Bonnie teased. “Unless it’s pick on Kai day.” 

Damon looked over at the bed and said, “Come on, little brother. You need to wake up and take some of this heat off me already.” 

Jo laughed, relaxing quite a bit at their teasing and playing around. She liked them already, though her brother being back still made her more than a little uncomfortable. As long as he was asleep, she was okay.

“As much as I hate to break up the much needed fun…Artemis says the kids are getting anxious,” Elena broke in.

“Right, let me just check on him one more time real quick before they come in,” Bonnie said moving back to Kai’s bedside. She had enough strength back now and cast a few diagnostic spells before doing the other dark spell one more time and stumbling back. Damon helped her back to the bed to sit. “That’s all I’ve got in me, but it should be enough. He’s fighting back pretty well now.” 

“Good,” Elena sighed gladly as she wiped the blood off Kai’s forehead while Damon went to get the kids. 

Jo stepped back into the corner, pulling Ric with her. She didn’t want to intrude, but she did want to observe. She wanted a few minutes to see what her nieces and nephews were like before she officially met them. It could help tell her a little something about what her brother was really like too. Besides, they needed to get the news about their father who they were clearly worried about before being introduced to new people anyway. If they’d spent their whole life in a prison world, being around new people would be unsettling enough she was sure.


	7. Chapter 7

The children trooped in, obviously scared and nervous, and Jo’s eyes widened at the sight of the jaguar that followed them in. She watched as the beast walked over to her brother, sniffed him, whined, and then jumped into the bed and stretched out beside him, laying her head on his chest. “Aww. It’s okay Artemis. He’ll be fine,” Elena assured the cat as she scratched it behind the ears. 

“He’ll really be okay, Aunt Elena?” Gabe asked hopefully. 

“His magic feels all gross,” little Kai said with a shudder, backing into Damon and leaning against him. 

Damon put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I know, buddy. That’s why he’s asleep. His magic is fighting against the bad magic and it’s really exhausting.” 

“Uncle Damon?” Carrie pulled on his pant leg and Damon leaned down to pick her up. 

“What’s up jitterbug?” Damon asked as he bounced her in his arms. 

“I don’t like it here. Can we go home?” she said with watery eyes. 

“Me too,” Lynn muttered from her place in Bonnie’s lap as Bonnie gently pulled her thumb from her mouth. 

“Why don’t you like it here?” Elena asked the room, wondering if the other kids felt the same way. 

“First we couldn’t get into our house, then a man yelled at Daddy and we had to leave and now Daddy’s hurt,” Gabe said crossing his arms. Not noticing Ric in the corner wince when he was brought into it, not to mention being the reason their father was hurt. 

Damon went over and sat down next to Elena and Bonnie on the bed, settling Carrie in his lap as little Kai climbed up next to him and leaned against his side. Damien was in Elena’s lap and Elena pulled Gabe over next to her too as Bonnie said, “I know that this is a difficult adjustment for you kids and today hasn’t been very good, but it will get better. I promise.” 

“We can’t go home anyway, ‘member,” little Kai said. “Once we left, home disappeared.” 

“Hey, I know what might cheer you up. How would you like to meet another aunt?” Bonnie asked, looking back at Jo hopefully. 

Jo took a deep breath to steady herself before she stepped forward. “Hi. I’m Jo. Kai’s twin sister.”

“You’re Aunt Josie?” Carrie asked sliding off Damon’s lap and going over to her. “Daddy talks about you sometimes, but it always makes him cry when he does.” 

Jo had no idea what to say to her statement so she just answered the question instead. “Yeah, that’s me. And you are?” 

“I’m Carrie. I’m seven,” she said with a grin that was missing her two front teeth. That started a run of all the children introducing themselves, even four-year-old Lynn, whose thumb had to be pulled from her mouth again and Damon sighed at the sight. They had just gotten her out of that habit a few weeks ago, but now all the stress had her picking it up again. 

Jo crouched down in front of all of them and said, “There’s someone else you should meet. I know he might have scared you before, but he was just upset.”

“Uncle Damon gets mad like that sometimes too,” little Kai was ready to forgive and forget, but the rest of the kids looked back at their parents and only agreed to meet him at their nods. 

“This is my husband. Your uncle Ric,” she said gently, waving him forward. 

Ric crouched down in front of them too, well used to dealing with children. “I’m sorry I yelled before. It’s been a really hard day for all of us. Maybe we can start over?” When he got a series of nervous nods, he considered it a win. “So is anyone hungry? It’s dinnertime now and Aunt Jo and I can go get us all some food.”

The four witch children, and Bonnie said that they were hungry, but the vampires weren’t. They’d filled up on blood at lunch and the kids were too stressed to think about human food, so Jo and Ric headed out to get some food and Elena went with to help. Bonnie didn’t want to leave Kai, and Damon didn’t want to deal with the potential hero worship right now if he was spotted, so that left Elena. 

When they got back about fifteen minutes later with seven trays of food since Jo and Ric were going to eat with them, Elena was snickering. “What’s so funny?” Bonnie asked. 

“Oh the rumors that are flying out there…about the legendary Damon Salvatore…and some of the theories about how he came back…” she got out through her laughter. 

“Daddy’s famous?” Damien asked excitedly. 

“Apparently,” Bonnie rolled her eyes. 

“It’s all Uncle Ric’s fault,” Damon muttered. 

“Hey, if you want to blame someone, blame Stefan,” Ric protested amusedly. 

“Well he’s not here to blame, now is he?” Damon joked. Once they were done eating and the trays were stacked up on the desk, Serenity went over and climbed in Damon’s lap. “What’s wrong little-bit?” Damon asked gently. 

“Wish Daddy would wake up,” she sniffled. 

“Like I would deny my little princess anything,” Kai said weakly as he struggled to open his eyes. 

“Daddy!” four voices rang out along with the, “Uncle Kai!” from three others. Artemis barely managed to jump off the bed before she was trampled. Kai smiled brightly as he hugged all the kids he could reach and reached out to ruffle the hair of those he couldn’t. He had honestly expected to be dead and never thought he would see any of them again. He fully intended to find out how he survived once little ears weren’t listening, but for now he would just revel in the presence of the kids. 

“Go easy, kids,” Bonnie called. 

“It’s fine,” Kai told her. “I’m fine,” he said pressing kisses to excited little heads. 

Bonnie chuckled and let it go on for a little while longer as she turned to Ric and asked, “I don’t suppose we could stay here tonight? It’s getting late and with all the excitement, I don’t really want to have to drag the kids anywhere else.”

“Yeah of course. Most of this section is empty right now, so we can get them set up.” 

“How about just the rooms to either side of this one,” Elena suggested. “Boys in one and girls in the other and we can all stay in here. We can figure things out a little more tomorrow.” 

“I’m good with that if you guys are,” Ric shrugged, and everyone agreed. 

Since Bonnie didn’t need to worry about saving her magic for Kai anymore she chanted two quick spells to make doors on either side of the room leading to the next and then stepped into the hallway to put a barrier spell around those doors. “The last thing we need is the kids waking up and wandering out with all the students.” 

“No one here would hurt them,” Ric assured them. 

“It’s not that,” Damon said. “They’ve never been around anyone other than us. They’ve lived their whole life in a world where we’re the only people. If they end up out there among a whole crowd of people they’re going to freak.”

“Yeah, we need to introduce them slowly. And with us at first,” Elena explained. 

“That makes sense. I didn’t think of that,” Ric agreed as he glanced worriedly back at Jo who was in the back corner of the room behind Kai now that he was awake. 

Bonnie noticed his glance and knew that the adults needed some time. It was still a little early to send the kids to bed though so she had a better idea. “Okay kiddos. Now that you know he’s going to be okay it’s time to start winding down for the night.” She grabbed the toy bag and took it into the next room while Elena went through one of the other bags looking for their workbooks. “Why don’t you all work on your lessons for a little while before bed?” 

They all groaned but climbed off Kai’s bed and took their workbooks from Elena as they trooped into the next room followed by Artemis. Once they were alone, the door was closed, and the privacy spell was up, Kai groaned painfully as he tried to sit up, quickly being helped by Damon. “You said you were fine,” Elena huffed. 

“I didn’t think I was every going to see them again,” Kai told her. “A little pain was more than worth it. How did I survive anyway?” he asked as he reached out to Bonnie who slid onto the bed next to him and snuggled into his arms. 

“I remembered a spell I read about once that consumed magic from living things,” Bonnie told him. 

“And since I don’t have my own magic it was safe to use on me,” Kai nodded. “That explains why I woke up completely empty.” 

“Well if you’d quit draining incompatible magic you’d quit having this problem,” Elena said pointedly. 

“It’s not like I had a choice ‘Lena,” Kai tried to placate the irritated vampire. “Leaving all these kids in that kind of danger wasn’t exactly an option.”

“And leaving your kids without a father was?” Elena asked. 

“At least they would be alive and safe,” Kai pointed out. “It’s called penance.” 

“That doesn’t mean you can just throw your life away. You don’t resurrect in this world when you kill yourself remember,” she argued. She would never be okay with the people she loved putting themselves in danger. She still believed that there was always another way. 

“He knows, Elena,” Damon came to Kai’s rescue, wrapping his arms around her stomach and pulling her against him. “Let it go, sweetheart.” Elena huffed but dropped it as she leaned back against Damon. 

Jo watched the entire thing, trying to come to terms with this version of her brother and calm down the irrational fear that welled up in her at the sight of him. He’d been the bogeyman to her for so long and she still had nightmares about that day, and the scar from it. It was Ric that gave her a little push forward when their conversation lapsed and she took a deep breath before taking another step into Kai’s line of sight. “Josie…” he breathed out, recognizing her immediately despite the years between them.


	8. Chapter 8

“Hello, Kai,” Jo said shakily. 

Kai forgot how to breath for a moment as everything he had always imagined saying in this moment flew out of his head and the tears welled up in his eyes. He immediately got up and headed for her, but stopped when she flinched and backed away which got the words flowing disjointedly. “I’m sorry, Josie. I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt them. To hurt anyone. I’m so sorry. I was just so scared and I panicked and I thought if I was the last they wouldn’t be able to throw me away and I shouldn’t have done it. I would give anything to be able to take it back. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but please at least believe that,” he begged as the tears rolled down his cheeks. Everyone else stayed out of it for now, letting the siblings handle this alone, but staying for moral support. 

“You were always like that though. Always lashing out and getting angry and violent. It wasn’t just that one time,” Jo said, needing to understand. “I get that you were upset about the way mom and dad treated you, but that was why we treated you the way we did. Because we were afraid of you.” 

“I know, and I’m sorry,” Kai told her. “You don’t know what it’s like for a siphoner though. Everything is different. There’s a reason we tend to be emotionally unstable and have violent outbursts.” 

“There is?” Jo asked, curiosity overriding her fear. They had been struggling with Lizzie’s instability and outbursts for so long that just the idea that there was a reason behind them that they might have overlooked had her completely interested, and Ric was right there with her. 

“Maybe we should sit down and figure this out,” Ric suggested, leading Jo to the desk and pulling the other desk chair over. 

Kai nodded as he sat back down on the end of the bed nearest his sister. “Someone mentioned that there were siphoners at this school before, so you need to know this anyway if you’re going to handle them. Did you know that siphoners used to be revered in ancient Egypt and certain parts of central and south America?” he asked. 

“How do you know that?” Jo asked confused. 

“Because in the sixteen years since the others joined me in the prison world we used the fact that there were no other people there to search the entire world for forgotten magical knowledge. You wouldn’t believe how many places there are that have been magically hidden away for thousands of years. We recorded it all and brought it back with us and we’d be happy to share it, particularly the information on siphoners if you want to check my story.”

“That’s pretty amazing,” Jo had to admit. “And I would love to see it anyway, but for now we’ll say I believe you.”

“Thank you,” he said with a slight smile. “But anyway, in those cultures curses were tossed around like confetti so having someone on hand who could siphon the magic from those curses came in handy, which is why they had a lot of information on siphoners available.”

“That makes sense,” Jo nodded. 

“The reason siphoners are like that is because we’re born with a void where our magic should be and our entire being is reaching out to fill that void. If Mom and Dad had been any kind of decent parents I would have been a normal kid…”

“How was it their fault you didn’t have magic?” Jo asked as she bristled at the implication that bad parenting led to the problems that Lizzie was having just like Kai had. 

“One of my sons is a siphoner too. It wasn’t until recently that he started having issues. Because he’s ‘too old’ for cuddles anymore. Because we passively absorb magic through touch.” 

“It always hurt when you took my magic,” Jo pointed out worriedly. 

“It does when it’s yanked away. I’m talking about the magic that exudes naturally from any supernatural being. Kind of like an aura if you will. When we get enough physical contact with someone magical it keeps us stable, but if not a kind of magical withdrawal sets in and that’s what causes the fits.” 

“So if a siphoner has non-magical parents and no siblings with their own magic either…” Jo figured out. 

“Then they won’t have an easy time of it at all,” Kai told her. “Or if their magical parents and siblings treat them like a pariah.” He took a few deep breaths as he forced the memories away. “It took me a long time to learn how to control it and even longer to learn how to prevent it. Now that I can recognize the signs, and know what to do, whenever I start feeling on edge I just go cuddle with someone for a while to level myself off.”

“And it doesn’t hurt them at all?” Ric asked suspiciously. 

“Not a passive siphon, no. It just takes what’s already being expelled from the body. Even a controlled siphon doesn’t hurt, though it does drain their active magic and taking too much too fast can cause problems. It’s only an uncontrolled snatch of power that hurts and believe it or not that takes a lot more concentration and effort than a controlled siphon.” 

“We can all attest to all of that,” Bonnie pointed out, seeing their skepticism.

“I hope you’ll forgive me if I’d rather have an unbiased opinion before we talk about letting kids run around siphoning off each other,” Ric said pointedly. 

“I would be happy to demonstrate,” Kai offered. “But I can tell that Josie doesn’t have her magic anymore, so…” 

“Jo,” she said. “I go by Jo now. Not Josie.” 

“So you have to…cuddle…to get the effects?” Ric asked. 

“No. Any skin contact will do. Like there was once I started having trouble when it was just me and Damon around and neither of us are the type to cuddle with each other,” Kai chuckled. 

“You got that right,” Damon laughed. 

“He was pretty freaked out at first when I kept touching him, but once I explained he was good with it and I just leaned my arm against his on the bar for a while,” Kai explained with a shrug. 

“If you’ll give me a few minutes I’ll find someone you can demonstrate with,” Ric decided. He wasn’t going to volunteer anyone for cuddling but minor skin contact was okay. Once Kai nodded, he left the room. 

“So since you said that you woke up without magic and the spell to save you took it all…are you…unstable now?” Jo asked nervously. 

“No,” Kai shook his head. “Cuddling with the kids and then with Bonnie got me leveled off enough. I don’t have enough to start casting spells or anything right now, but there’s enough to keep me going until I get built up again.” 

“Good. That’s good,” Jo said shakily. With Ric gone, she was a lot more nervous than she had been before. Thankfully it wasn’t long before he was back. 

“Guys this is Hope,” Ric introduced her. “Hope this is Kai and Bonnie Bennett, and…”

“Damon Salvatore and I’m guessing Elena,” she interrupted with a grin. “Great to meet you all.”

They all returned the sentiment before Kai asked surprised, “You want me to demonstrate with a student?” Ric obviously thought that what he would be doing was harmful so he would have expected one of the witches on staff. 

“Hope isn’t just an ordinary student,” Ric chuckled. 

“What are we demonstrating?” Hope asked curiously. 

“Kai here claims that there are ways to siphon magic without causing any harm,” Ric told her. “I want your honest impressions of what he does, if you’re willing to participate.”

“Sure,” Hope shrugged. “What do I need to do?” 

“Just take my hand,” Kai told her holding out his hand to her and she only hesitated a moment before putting her hand in his. “This is what a passive siphon feels like.”

“You’re already doing it?” Hope asked and Kai nodded. “I can feel my magic reacting, but not in any kind of bad way. It doesn’t feel like it’s being pulled away at all and my power levels aren’t dipping.” 

“Shall I demonstrate a controlled siphon?” Kai asked both Ric and Hope and they both nodded so he started pulling slowly. 

“That I can feel, but it doesn’t hurt or even uncomfortable or anything. I can feel my power levels dipping, but slow enough that I’m replenishing as it goes. It feels just like when I’m casting a spell with the twins,” Hope told them. 

“The twins?” Kai asked curiously dropping her hand. 

“Later,” Ric waved off the question. “Thank you, Hope.” 

“Is no one going to tell me what this is about?” she asked. 

“Not right now,” Ric told her. “We’ll talk soon.” Hope huffed but walked out.


	9. Chapter 9

“So you’re saying that all a siphoner needs is regular physical contact with someone magical? Even a vampire or a werewolf?” Jo asked to confirm. 

“Exactly,” Kai nodded. 

“If you want a demonstration, little Kai has been struggling for the last few days and according to Artemis he’s on the verge of an outburst,” Elena spoke up. 

Bonnie did a spell to make the wall see-through and allow them to hear what was going on with the kids as Ric asked, “And you’re just going to let it happen?” 

“He needs to learn to recognize the signs himself,” Kai said evenly. “And the kids need to learn to handle it without our interference. We won’t always be able to be there every moment of every day.”

“We’ll step in if it gets out of hand,” Damon assured them. “But they’re getting pretty good at figuring it out themselves.”

“We’ve explained to them everything we have to you about how the outbursts happen and what needs to be done to fix it. They understand that it’s not his fault and that when it happens he needs help not anger,” Bonnie added. 

Their attention was drawn completely to the kids as little Kai snapped and started yelling at Carrie and shoved her to the floor. Gabe jumped in front of him as he advanced on her and grabbed Kai’s hands and put them on his cheeks before putting his own hands on his twin’s cheeks and leaning their foreheads together. “It’s okay, Kai. Just breathe,” Gabe told him. “You’re okay.”

It was a few minutes before either of them moved and Kai pulled his brother into a quick grateful hug before turning to Carrie. “I’m so sorry, Carrie,” he said with tears in his eyes as he reached a hand to help her up. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” 

“I hit my elbow on the floor,” she said lifting it up to show him. 

Kai leaned forward and kissed it. “All better now?” he asked hopefully. 

“All better,” she grinned and hugged him around the middle and he hugged her back too as a chorus of ‘aww’ went through the watching adults. 

“She probably wasn’t hurt at all,” Damon chuckled. “She’s a slick one. She knows it makes him feel better to make amends somehow.” 

“She is sneaky like that,” Kai agreed as they watched the kids sit back down, but this time Carrie and Damien leaned against either side of little Kai as they did so they had some physical contact. 

“That’s all it takes?” Jo asked surprised. 

“That’s all,” Kai told her. “Just a hug goes a long way to a siphoner.” 

“But not all siphoners are like that though. Some of them are always calm even when they don’t get magic,” Jo was thinking about Josie. 

“Those are the ones in the most danger,” Kai told her. 

“What? Why?” Ric asked worriedly. Had he really spent so long worried about the wrong daughter?

“Because while most of us let all of that out externally, the ones that bottle it up internally have a lot more problems. Usually what ends up happening is a sort of split personality. All the stuff that should be coming out in the outbursts just fuels a fire of darkness inside of them and the more they starve for magic the stronger that side gets until it’s strong enough to take over their consciousness. The good and bad parts fight for control until or unless one of them wins and even then the losing part is always there fighting for control. I’m sure you’ve heard of Morgana La Fey? Circe? Baba Yaga?” 

“Oh god…” Jo gasped, covering her mouth. 

“That’s actually where the travelers came from. This perversion of magic that went so far into the absence of magic that it became the opposite of it. A starved siphoner got revenge on the coven that shunned him and drained their magic long past the point of death twisting their souls before using the blackest of magics to return them to life with the same anti-magic that he was pushed into.” 

Jo paled even more as she recognized the start of that story. With what Kai had gone through, if he had internalized his struggle, there could have been another group like the travelers. He could have become a being of pure darkness. That was all it took for her to forgive everything he’d done. Other than the massacre. That would take a little more work, but she was sure they could get there. “So you’re telling me that even if we can find a way to stop the merge, my daughter will end up with another consciousness in her head anyway?” 

“You have Gemini twins?” Kai asked surprised. 

“Yes, I do. And I don’t care if it’s tradition or an honor or anything like that. I intend to find a way to stop the merge. I will not just let one of my children die. Period,” she said firmly, expecting Kai to disagree. 

“No, I get that. I agree completely. And we can help with that,” he told her. 

“How?” Ric asked hopefully. 

“We’ve found a way to stop it,” Kai told them. “Sort of. Mostly.”

“What do you want in return?” Jo asked. She would give him anything. 

“Nothing,” Kai said, hurt by the question. “I know that after what I did before that you probably don’t believe this, but I would never let a child die if I could stop it. Especially not my own family. Not when I’m in my right mind.”

The fact that he didn’t even ask for her forgiveness when he so clearly wanted it was enough to push her over that last edge. This was her brother. Her family. And if he could help save her girls, then she would treat him as such. “What did you mean by sort of, mostly?” she still had to ask. 

“There are six different ways that we found,” Kai told her. “One that will definitely work, but only as a last resort. One that we will cast just before they turn twenty-two, but if that doesn’t work we’ll have to wait until they’re going through the effects of not merging before we can test and see if any of the other less drastic ways work.”

“Why is the one a last resort?” Jo asked curiously. 

“Because it will completely shatter any aspects of their twin bond and not in a comfortable way,” Kai told her. “The one that we will be casting before they turn twenty two is designed to basically stop the bond from developing any further. We think that one might work because of where the twin merge originated.”

“Where did it originate? We’ve tried to find something on that, but come up blank,” Jo asked. 

“I’m not surprised. I’m not even positive it’s about our family but everything fits. We found it in Greece in an archive that had been magically sealed and cloaked for almost three thousand years,” Kai told her. “The coven didn’t have a name back then and the leadership of the coven always went to the oldest child of the previous leader. They were very powerful simply because all of the members took an oath to bind their power together with the leader of the coven as the tether so that if the leader fell they all did.”

“That part definitely sounds familiar,” Jo huffed. She’d always thought that was barbaric. 

“That was what got us looking deeper,” Kai agreed. “Well at one point a leader of the coven had twin sons. The sons fought tooth and nail their whole lives over who would be the next to lead the coven. One of them was married by the time their father fell ill and without a clear leader, the entire coven would die with him. The sons decided on a fight to the death. The winner would lead the coven.” 

“I’m guessing the wife didn’t like that idea much,” Jo snorted. 

“She wasn’t worried about it. The brother that she was married to was stronger and more skilled both physically and magically. According to her anyway, but she was probably rather biased. Apparently his brother thought the same though because the night before the fight, on the eve of their twenty-second birthday, he snuck into their room and slit his brother’s throat as he slept. The wife woke up too late to save her husband, but not too late to save herself and she used her magic to impale him on his brother’s sword.”

“So they both died?” Jo’s eyes widened. 

“Yes. They did. And leadership of the coven fell to their younger brother. The witch was lost in her grief though and placed a curse on the younger brother that would follow the coven as long as they existed. Whenever a set of twins were born they would be bound together and this bond would grow as they did and reach it’s peak on their twenty second birthdays at which time the fight that her husband never got would take place and the stronger twin would consume the weaker one and only a combined twin would ever be able to lead the coven again. If they didn’t merge then their bond would tear them apart.” 

“So you think that stopping the bond at the point just before it reaches it’s peak will prevent them from the effects of not merging?” Ric guessed. 

“Exactly,” Bonnie nodded. “If it doesn’t work, there are other spells that would sever certain aspects of the bond but leave the rest in place, and then, of course, the mentioned spell that would destroy the entire bond.”


	10. Chapter 10

“That’s actually why it took us so long to come back. We could have gotten back over ten years ago once Bonnie got her magic back when she was pregnant, but since it was Gemini twins, we weren’t leaving until we found a solution. We would never be able to get such unrestricted access to knowledge in this world. We even got grimoires and personal libraries of modern witches when we could find them because no one was there to stop us,” Elena told them. 

“So you intentionally stayed in a prison world for ten years longer than you had to?” Ric asked as he tried to wrap his head around that. On one hand the part of him that missed his best friend and pseudo-brother so desperately was pissed that he hadn’t come back the moment he had the ability, but the father side of him understood completely. In the end the father side won. 

“Yeah. We did. And we don’t regret it,” Damon said firmly. “Those kids are our family and we would do /anything/ to save them.” 

“I get it,” Jo nodded. “We would do anything to save our girls too.”

“How old are they?” Kai asked. 

“They’re sixteen,” Jo told him. 

“Okay, good. Then we’re not on a tight deadline. If you can give us a few weeks to get settled in and unpacked and get all our drives sorted and backed up on modern technology, we’ll get you everything we have on siphoners, the merge, the Gemini coven, and all of it,” Kai promised. 

Jo took a big step and reached out to take Kai’s hand. “Thank you, Kai,” she said with a nervous smile at the first initiated contact with her brother, but he deserved it after this. 

Kai gripped her hand and closed his eyes at the wash of emotion as the tears welled up behind his closed lids. “Anything I can do Josie…Jo, sorry. I’ll never be able to make up for what I did all those years ago, but I will never stop trying to do right by what family I have left.” 

She smiled at him and squeezed his hand as she nodded. “Will you be wanting to rejoin the coven?” she asked curiously. 

“The coven that shunned me and threw me away just for being a siphoner?” Kai snorted. “Like they would even accept me back after what I did.”

“They accept my girls just fine and they’re both siphon witches. Times have changed. As far as the rest, I’ll talk to Luke,” Jo promised. “Tell him all this and even share the research you have with him if you don’t mind. He’ll understand. And he’ll make the rest understand too.” 

Kai sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know. Whether we go back or not is something that my wife and I would have to have a long discussion about and the kids should get to weigh in on that too. As far as talking to him and sharing the research, you’re welcome to do so. Even if I don’t rejoin the coven, I wouldn’t mind getting to know my little brother. I’m guessing he won the merge with Liv?” 

“Yeah. He did. Dad died years ago, not long after their merge and Luke took over,” Jo explained. 

“I can’t say I’m sorry to hear that,” Kai admitted. 

“I don’t blame you after what they did to you,” Jo assured him. 

“Do you have any other bombshells to drop tonight?” Ric asked with a chuckle. 

“I don’t think so, no,” Kai shrugged and looked around at everyone else who shook their heads. 

“Then maybe we can talk a little bit about the school? Starting with whether you’d be willing to donate copies of your digital library to us?” Ric asked hopefully. 

Damon laughed and shook his head. Typical Ric. “Give us a bit to get the kids tucked into bed and then we’ll talk.” 

“Fair enough,” Ric nodded. “While you’re doing that, Jo and I will go grab some things from my office to show you and I’ll make some phone calls to get everyone else out here to see you.” 

“That would be great, Ric. Thank you,” Elena said happily, dying to see her brother. And Stefan and Caroline. But especially Jeremy. 

“Don’t tell anyone we’re back yet. I’d rather surprise them. Oh and make sure Liz is on that list too will you?” Damon asked hopefully.

Ric’s face fell. “About that…Liz is…gone.”

“What?” Damon asked heartbroken. “Who killed her?” Whoever it was would die a very painful death. 

“Brain cancer,” Ric told him. 

“Do what?” Damon looked completely gobsmacked and even Elena and Bonnie were surprised. “You mean to tell me…in a town that has a supernatural apocalypse every year…she survived all that…just to die of freaking cancer?!” 

“Yeah,” Ric chuckled. “I know it’s crazy.”

“When?” 

“Less than a year after you were lost,” Ric told him. “I’m sorry, Damon. I know you cared a lot for her.” 

Damon sighed heavily. So coming back sooner wouldn’t have made a difference. That helped with the guilt for not being here. He /couldn’t/ have been here. “Thank you. One of these days, I want someone to take me to where she’s buried.”

“We’ll make sure you get there,” Ric promised. 

Elena reached out and rubbed a hand over Damon’s back as he collected himself. “Right. Well. We have some kids to put to bed, don’t we,” Damon pushed it all away and got back on task. 

It was half an hour later when they all gathered back in the room and Bonnie had monitoring spells on both the kids’ rooms. “How did the phone calls go?” Elena asked once they were all seated again. 

“Stefan and Caroline will be here by tomorrow night, Jeremy by tomorrow morning,” Ric told them. 

“Thanks, Ric,” Damon said again. “Now…you wanted to talk about copying our library?” 

“Yeah. Those kinds of resources would be amazing for the kids.”

“Some of it will never leave our sight and will never be copied. Including any and all black magic, especially traveler magic,” Bonnie said firmly. 

“We can definitely agree to that,” Jo nodded. 

“The dark magic stuff we’ll copy for you, but separate into what’s appropriate for a school,” Kai added. 

“There isn’t any dark magic allowed here, so none of that will be for the students,” Ric told them. 

“I agree that a lot of it shouldn’t be taught, but they need at least the basics,” Bonnie argued. “Dark magic has it’s place and they need to know how to use it safely.” 

Before they could get any deeper into that argument, the door opened from the side room and Damien came in. “Daddy, I’m hungry,” he said miserably. 

“Right, I’m sorry buddy. With all the excitement we didn’t even think,” Damon told him before turning to Ric. “I’m guessing since you have vampires here that you also have blood?” 

“Yeah, I’ll go get some,” Ric told him. 

“Grab a few? I’m sure the girls are hungry too.” They had hoped that since they had a big lunch before they left that they wouldn’t have to worry about it until morning, but apparently that wasn’t to be. 

“I’ll go check them,” Elena offered and came back a moment later with Steffie and Lynn. “You were right. They’re hungry too.” 

Ric was back a few minutes later with five blood bags and he handed them out. Damon and Elena helped the kids open theirs first but before they could get to their own, Damien was spitting it out. “Yuck! Daddy, there’s something wrong with the blood.” 

“Let me see,” Damon took it from him and took a small sip and the moment it hit his tongue his face turned sour and it took all of his effort to swallow it instead of do the undignified thing and spit it out like the seven year old. He grabbed the bags from both girls before they could drink them too. “This is animal blood,” Damon said looking at Ric and hoping that he made a mistake and grabbed the wrong ones. 

“That’s all we have here,” Ric told them apologetically. “All the vampires drink animal blood.” 

“That’s…I…” Damon fumed.

Elena put a hand on his arm to calm him. “The first thing we need to do is take care of getting the kids fed,” she said evenly. “Then we can address other issues.” 

“Right,” Damon sighed as he got up and headed to his bag. “I don’t know if these will be any good, but I brought them just in case,” he said as he pulled out a handful of blood bags. He opened one and gave it a sniff before taking a small sip and then nodding. He handed that one to Damien and another to Elena and they both tested them before handing them to the girls. 

When Damon tried to hand one to Elena she shook her head. “No, I’ll manage. The kids will need breakfast too,” she told him and Damon put the last three bags away for the time being. If they’d survived the trip they should be fine by morning too. They had mostly been worried about bringing them from ninety four and whether the time would catch up to them.


	11. Chapter 11

It didn’t take long for the kids to finish their blood and get tucked back into bed. As soon as they were all sitting again, Damon said, “Animal blood, Ric? Really?” 

“Hold on, Damon. We were talking about the witch issue. Then you can talk vamp stuff,” Bonnie cut him off and waited until Damon nodded curtly before turning back to Ric. “You can’t keep them cut off from entire branches of magic. What’s next? Not allowing any offensive magic at all?” 

“Actually…we don’t allow offensive magic,” Ric told her. “The last thing we need is these kids learning how to hurt or kill each other.” 

“You’re not serious,” Bonnie said in disbelief. 

“If they don’t know offensive magic, how are they supposed to protect themselves?” Kai asked. 

“It’s our job to protect them,” Ric argued. 

“Yeah with your handful of witches?” Damon scoffed. “How many of them know offensive magic?”

“And even if you could protect them from everything, what about when they go out in the world?” Bonnie asked incredulously. 

“You mean in the human world?” Ric asked pointedly. 

“No, we mean in the world where not all vampires and werewolves are part of your little inclusivity club. The world where werewolves and vampires have the strength and usually the desire to tear a witch limb from limb and where the /only/ thing they have to protect not only them, but humans as well, is the very magic you’ve banned,” Damon tried to reason with him. 

“Unless you just want to see werewolves take over the entire supernatural world,” Elena chimed in. 

Ric looked at Elena in betrayal. Of everyone he thought she would be the one on his side. “How could you think that?” he asked hurt. 

Even Damon, Bonnie and Kai were looking at her curiously wondering how she reached that conclusion. “Think about it,” she told them. “He’s stunting the vampires and keeping them weak by keeping them on animal blood. He’s doing the same with the witches by banning useful magic, but there’s not really any way to weaken a werewolf.”

“I’m teaching them another way,” Ric argued. “If the vampires learn to live on animal blood…”

“Then they’re weaker and easier to control,” Damon snapped. “And what happens when they leave this school? When they get out there in the world and realize how much better human blood tastes. How much stronger it makes them. Then you’ve got vampires out there on killing sprees, drawing attention to themselves. Best case scenario, they draw the attention of hunters and get themselves staked. Worse case the expose the entire supernatural world publicly and kick off open warfare in the streets between humans and supernaturals.”

“What you need to be doing is teaching them how to feed without killing people,” Elena told him. “Snatch, eat, erase. Or how to get blood from blood banks without suspicion. How to blend in.” 

“I can’t believe that you of all people are advocating for feeding on people, Elena,” Ric said confused. 

“Why not? I’m a vampire. We drink blood. It’s how we survive. And we can do it without hurting anyone. And if you’re not teaching these kids how to do that, then every person they kill when they walk out these doors is on you,” Elena said stubbornly. 

“And every witch that leaves here and gets killed because they don’t know how to protect themselves is on you too,” Bonnie added. “Every witch that loses themselves in dark magic because they don’t know how to control it is on you.” 

“You mean like you did with expression magic?” Ric asked pointedly. 

“Yeah. I did. And you know why? Because I didn’t know any better,” Bonnie said harshly. “I didn’t know that expression magic was dark until I was already in too deep. If anyone had taught me about it and what it was and how it worked, I never would have been able to be manipulated like that. If anyone had taught me how to balance the dark magic and the proper times to use it sparingly I would have been much more careful. And if I hadn’t known how to protect myself, even my vampire /friends/ would have ended up killing me, or are you forgetting the time I had to put Stefan down when he got lost in his bloodlust or the time Damon took a bite out of me.”

“Even a friendly fight can get out of hand when you’re dealing with someone with the strength and speed of vampires and werewolves,” Kai pointed out. 

“Bottom line, Ric…my children will /never/ attend a school that is more interested in subjugating them and has such a casual culture of treating them like monsters that need to be kept in line to protect the humans rather than teaching them to protect themselves and live /with/ humans instead of under their heel,” Damon said angrily. 

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Bonnie said crossing her arms. 

“Okay, listen,” Jo tried to calm everyone down. “You guys have given us a lot to think about and I promise you that we will do just that. And discuss it at length both among ourselves and with the rest of the faculty.”

Ric sighed and nodded. Even if he wanted to keep arguing, when his wife used that tone of voice, he knew it was pointless. “Yes. We will. And in the meantime, you’re all welcome here. I just ask that you don’t have this discussion with the students, at least until we’ve reached some decisions.”

“I don’t know about you guys, but I think I would rather leave in the morning. Not so much because of the problems with the school, but because I would rather have a more private place to reconnect with our family and friends,” Elena said. 

“I can understand that,” Ric nodded. “But we can clear out the rest of this section of the school temporarily and even put up barrier spells to keep the students from entering. This has always been your home and I wouldn’t want you to feel like you need to leave.” 

“We’ll discuss it and let you know in the morning,” Kai told them. “If that’s okay.”

“Sure. That’s fine,” Jo agreed easily. “In the meantime, we have some brochures and fliers of the school along with welcome packets that include maps and pictures that you’re welcome to look at.”

“Thanks, Josie…Jo,” Kai said with a smile and when she leaned over to hug him on her way out, he stood and hugged her back tightly, tears filling his eyes again. 

“Does a hug still go a long way even if I don’t have magic?” she asked hopefully. 

“Absolutely,” Kai said shakily. “More than you could imagine.” 

She smiled brightly as she let go. “We’ll talk some more tomorrow, Kai,” she promised before she left. 

Once they were alone, Damon said, “Why don’t you two discuss what you want to do while Elena and I hit up a blood bank and then we can all talk about it in the morning.” 

“Why don’t you wait until you know where we’re going to be?” Bonnie asked. 

“Because we only have enough blood for the kids’ breakfast and blood banks are much easier to get into at night,” Damon explained. 

“You should probably go out of town though,” Kai suggested. “This school is like a giant red flag and who knows how many people in town know about the supernatural stuff and are on the lookout.”

“Very true. And who knows how many people are on vervain,” Elena pointed out too. 

“Obviously I was planning to go out of town,” Damon rolled his eyes. “I’m not an idiot. Sixteen years ago half the town was on vervain. I’m not taking chances until I know the lay of the land.” 

“Okay, we’ll be back in a few hours then,” Elena told them. It would suck being so short on sleep tonight. Especially with Jeremy coming in the morning. But they would manage. With seven kids between them it would hardly be the first time after all. 

It was after one am by the time they got back, each carrying a cooler full of blood. They finished off the rest of the blood bags from the prison world before climbing into the second bed in the room. It was much smaller than they were used to, but big enough for two, if just barely. Kai and Bonnie were already fast asleep in the other bed.


	12. Chapter 12

Damon was woken up the next morning by a little hand poking him. “Daddy. Hungry,” Lynn pouted. 

Damon groaned and turned to open his eyes seeing all seven of the kids in the room while the twins went to wake up Bonnie and Kai. “Blood is in the coolers. Go ahead and grab it,” he mumbled sleepily as Elena groaned and stretched too and they started dragging themselves out of bed. 

They were still half asleep, but up at least, when there was a knock on the door. Damien blurred over to open the door and Elena rolled her eyes. “Damien, you should always let the adults open the door,” she chided gently as Ric and Jo came in. 

“We brought breakfast,” Jo said as they wheeled a cart in. “I know how young kids are up and hungry at the crack of dawn, so…” 

“And I see some of them already have breakfast,” Ric chuckled at the three vampire kids sipping on blood bags. When he noticed the full coolers he frowned. “I really hope you didn’t get that in town.”

“Nope. Wasn’t gonna take any chances here until we know the lay of the land like who’s on vervain and who’s not,” Damon told him. “We went out of town for it.”

“Okay good. Sheriff Donovan is always on the lookout for that kind of stuff with the school here and we don’t want to give him any reason to shut us down,” Ric explained. 

“Sheriff Donovan? Matt’s the sheriff?” Elena asked amusedly. 

“God help us all,” Damon snorted. 

“Be nice,” Bonnie laughed. 

“Anyway…” Ric chuckled. “We weren’t sure if the vampire kids ate human food, but we brought a whole spread and there should be plenty if they do.”

“They don’t /need/ human food, but they do like to eat some things,” Elena told them. “They’re very picky though, so if there’s nothing they like they’ll just pass so thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Jo said cheerfully. “Did you decide if you’re staying or not?” 

“Not completely,” Kai said. “I would like to stay here near my sister, but if the rest of you want to go, that’s okay too.”

“Elena and I discussed it on our blood run and as long as we can get some privacy here to settle in, we’re okay with staying if that’s what you two want. But a fridge for blood is gonna be a must,” Damon explained. 

“We can do a fridge,” Ric agreed, not wanting their blood supply to mix with the students anyway. “I’ll have one up by lunchtime and we can put a barrier at the opening of this hall, but we’ll have to let it up and down as needed.”

“No you won’t,” Bonnie smirked. “There’s a spell we found in China that sort of mimics the whole vampire having to be invited in thing. Or I guess the vampire thing mimics the spell actually since the spell predates vampires by about two thousand years.”

“Anyway…” Kai chuckled and got the conversation back on track. “We can put that up and then whoever the spell is tied to has to invite people past it. It works for any sentient being, including humans.” 

“That could come in handy,” Jo said impressed. 

“Yep and all invitation can be kicked out just by pulling the spell down and putting it back up again,” Elena explained. “Even the animals can’t get through. Since they’re linked to our minds the spell considers them as sentient.”

“Who were you thinking of tying the spell to?” Ric asked. 

“You actually,” Bonnie told him. “It’s your school and you know who we want to see and who we don’t.” 

“Okay. I can live with that. Do we want to go do it now?” Ric asked when he saw that everyone had finished breakfast. 

“What are the chances of running into a crowd right now?” Damon asked, more worried about the kids than himself. 

“Slim. Most people are either sleeping or in the dining hall for breakfast,” Jo explained. 

“Okay then let’s get this done now.”

“Actually, we should leave the kids here,” Elena suggested. “As long as they don’t get invitations they can’t get out into the rest of the school. We can worry about getting them access in a few days, once things settle down.”

“Yeah, that would probably be smart,” Kai agreed, so the adults all trooped out to the hallway. Bonnie put the spell up and Ric invited all of them past so they could come and go as they pleased before heading back to the room. 

“So Jeremy should be here in about an hour,” Ric told them. 

“Kai and I will go scout out some separate rooms for us and the kids so you can have a private reunion first,” Bonnie offered. 

“Why don’t we go ahead and do that now?” Jo suggested. “And maybe while they’re meeting Jeremy, we can bring our girls down to meet you.”

Kai grinned widely. “I like that idea.”

“Then we can all meet up for lunch?” Damon suggested. He wanted to meet Ric’s kids too. 

“That sounds like a plan,” Ric agreed. “I should go keep an eye out for Jeremy so I can get him back here.” 

“And I’ll help you find rooms,” Jo offered Bonnie and Kai. 

Once Damon and Elena were alone with their own kids, Elena leaned into Damon’s arms. “I can’t believe I’m about to see Jeremy again.” 

“I know the feeling,” Damon said softly, kissing her head. 

“We get to meet Uncle Jeremy?” Damien asked excitedly. 

“Sure do,” Damon ruffled his hair. “But we want to stay back and quiet while mom is saying hi, okay? She hasn’t seen him in a very long time.” 

“Kay,” Steffi agreed and the other two nodded.

When there was a knock on the door a little bit later, all three of the kids blurred over to the bed and jumped on it, watching quietly as their father told them. Damon chuckled at them as he moved back to lean against the wall as Elena opened the door. “Hey Jer.” 

Jeremy just blinked at her for a moment before rushing forward and grabbing her in a tight hug, one hand cupping the back of her head against his chest as the tears filled his eyes. “I swear to god, Ric if this is your kids messing around with illusion spells or something…”

“It’s not,” Ric chuckled. “They’re really back. I’ll give you some time.” 

“It’s really me, Jer,” Elena said hugging him tightly. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“God, you have no idea how much I missed you Elena,” Jeremy said pulling back to look at her before hugging her tightly again. “How is this possible? You’ve been dead for over sixteen years?” 

“Not exactly dead, per se,” Damon chimed in. 

“Damon…” Jeremy breathed out and much to the vampire’s surprise was pulled into a hug as well, but Damon just chuckled and returned it, clapping his brother in law on the back happily. 

“Our turn now?” Damien asked hopefully. 

“Hi Uncle Jer,” Steffi bounced happily as Lynn waved shyly. 

Jeremy finally noticed the kids and blinked at them in shock as Elena grinned. “Jer, we’d like you to meet Damien Jeremy Salvatore, Stefanie Alaria Salvatore, and Carolyn Eliza Salavatore.” 

Jeremy sat down on the bed next to them and said, “Nice to meet you.” 

“I’m named for you. And my dad, but also you. Mom and Dad talk about you all the time,” Damien chattered. 

“Is that so?” Jeremy chuckled reaching out to ruffle they boy’s hair before looking up at Damon and Elena. “I’m guessing that this ‘not exactly dead’ is going to be a long story?” 

Damon and Elena laughed. “You have no idea,” Elena told him. “It starts with the other side collapsing which is when we got sent to a prison world.”

“Oh god…they’re supposed to be horrible…and you were stuck there for over sixteen years? I’m so sorry. We should have been looking for you. We just thought…”

“It’s okay, Jer,” Elena cut him off. “We actually kinda liked it there. The reason they’re usually so bad is because you’re all alone and time is standing still around you, but we weren’t alone. We had each other and Bonnie and then we met her husband Kai, and it was nice.” 

“Good. That’s good at least,” Jeremy sighed with relief. “So what did you guys do other than apparently find a way to allow vampires to procreate…or are they…”

“They’re ours. Biologically,” Damon cut him off before he could put ideas in the kids’ heads, but he could understand why Jeremy might think that. “And it just took a lot of practice,” Damon joked. 

“Dude, I don’t need to know that!” Jeremy protested as Elena smacked her husband. 

“He’s kidding,” Elena laughed. “As for what we did, we mostly travelled the world looking for lost magical knowledge to bring back with us which was how we stumbled across temples from a tribe of Incans who worshipped this vampire couple and created an elixir for them to be able to have children. Since the vampires died before they could take it, it was still there and here we are.” 

“That’s awesome. So they’re vampires then?” Jeremy asked. 

“Yeah. We are. Mom and Dad said you were a vampire hunter, but they said you won’t hurt though because we’re family,” Damien jumped in. 

“Yeah, I don’t kill vampires anymore anyway. Not unless they’re actively hurting people. I actually work for the school more often than not. Helping to find kids who have been turned or activated their werewolf curse,” Jeremy explained. 

“That’s awesome,” Elena grinned, echoing his words. “What about your personal life? Are you married? Any kids?” 

“Nah,” Jeremy laughed. “Plenty of dating, but I’m not really interested in settling down or anything.” 

“Ah I remember those days fondly,” Damon said wistfully, getting smacked again. “Hey, I didn’t say I wanted them back. I’m perfectly happy with my beautiful wife and perfect children. Just that they were fun.” 

Jeremy laughed at their antics, taking in their dynamic now. They had always been ridiculously in love. Even before they got together. That obviously hadn’t changed, but they were more comfortable now. They had an ease about their interactions that he envied. The next few hours was spent talking about their time in the prison world, but not much about the traveling since the kids kept interjecting with their own stories so it was mostly about them, not that anyone minded.


	13. Chapter 13

While Jeremy was meeting his sister’s family, Kai and Bonnie were sitting in their new room with their kids waiting for Ric and Jo to get back with Josie and Lizzie. Kai was more than a little jittery, so Bonnie took his hand. “You nervous?” she asked knowingly. 

“Is it that obvious?” he asked with a chuckle. 

“Just a little bit,” she teased, threading their fingers together and leaning her head on his shoulder. “It’ll be good. Your sister was the hard part,” she reminded him. 

“Yeah but I didn’t have any warning time to work myself up over that one,” Kai pointed out. Before anyone could respond there was a knock at the door. “Come on in.” 

Jo and Ric came in followed by their twins. “Girls, I want you to meet Bonnie Bennett and her husband Kai…my twin brother and your uncle,” Jo told them. 

They started to go into raptures over Bonnie Bennett, but stopped in shock at the mention of their mother’s twin brother and they gaped at him. “But…he can’t be that much older than us. How can he be your twin?” 

“I’ve been stuck in a prison world since nineteen ninety four,” Kai told them. “I haven’t aged since I was twenty two.”

“Why were you in a prison world?” Josie asked suspiciously. 

“It’s complicated, but basically my parents hated that I was a siphoner and didn’t want to risk me ending up as the coven leader so they decided to stick me in a prison world instead.”

“That’s all?” Lizzie asked horrified. 

“There’s more to the story that happened after, but that’s for another time,” Kai told them turning his attention to the kids. “These are my kids,” he told them, giving the introductions and Lizzie and Josie smiled brightly at them before bringing the subject back around. 

“If they hated siphon witches, would they have hated us too?” Lizzie asked worriedly. 

“You’re siphoners like Dad and Kai?” Gabe asked interestedly. 

“Yeah, we are,” Josie told him as they all sat down around the room. 

“You needs cuddles den,” Serenity said seriously as she climbed into Josie’s lap prompting Carrie to do the same for Lizzie as Gabe sat between them and took their hands. Kai chuckled at the confused looks on the girls faces.

Lizzie was the first to find her voice. “Thank you, but we’re not bothered by it.”

“That’s not what they mean,” Jo smiled at the adorable and loving kids. “Kai, do you want to explain?” 

“Sure,” Kai agreed as he launched into the story, starting with how siphoners were revered in certain societies and why. When he explained about the instability and outbursts, Lizzie’s eyes lit up. When he went into the other side and what happened to those who turned inward, Josie got a worried look. Both of them looked like all the mysteries of the world had been explained by the time he was finished though. 

“That’s why none of the medications help my moods,” Lizzie said happily. For the first time in her life everything actually made sense. She made sense. She wasn’t broken. She was just different. Just like her uncle and cousin. She didn’t need medication. She just needed magic. Knowing what was wrong and how it could be fixed made a world of difference for her self-esteem. 

“And why we both always feel so much better when we help out with the lower grades,” Josie added. She was more than a little worried about the whole split personality darkness thing, but tried to put it out of her head for now. They knew how to prevent it now. She just had to make sure to get enough magic. “If I do go bad though…”

“We can help keep it from getting that far,” Kai told her. “Do you think you have any symptoms yet?” 

“Can we…um…talk later? Alone?” Josie asked hesitantly, looking at her parents. 

“Why don’t you go into the next room?” Ric suggested. As much as he wanted to know what was going on, he wanted his daughter to be okay more and if she wouldn’t talk to him, he would make sure that she had the opportunity to talk to someone she trusted. 

“Is that okay with you?” Kai asked Josie, motioning to the door in invitation. 

She nodded, and got up, setting Ser on the floor and followed Kai into the next room. Bonnie noticed Jo looking after them worriedly, and Bonnie told her, “Don’t worry. Kai is really good at dealing with siphoner issues and he’s a pretty good counselor too.”

“That’s not it. It’s just…when did our girls stop talking to us?” she asked with a sigh. 

“It’s not that we don’t want to talk to you guys,” Lizzie told her. “It’s just…you don’t understand. Like even now, you always told us not to siphon people, but it turns out we /have/ to, and I know that you didn’t know and I don’t blame you, but having someone who understands now and knows about all this stuff…it’s comforting, you know?” 

“We get that,” Ric admitted. “But we want to understand too. That’s why we wanted you two to meet Kai. He told us all this last night and we wanted you to hear it first hand.”

“We want to be a part of this too, Lizzie,” Jo told her. “We will learn what we need to learn to help you. Will you meet us halfway?” 

“We’ll try, but there are probably always going to be things that we’re more comfortable talking to Uncle Kai about now,” Lizzie told her. 

“That’s understandable,” Bonnie jumped in. “There are things that little Kai won’t talk to anyone but him about either for the same reason. Sometimes it’s just easier to talk to someone who’s been there.” Jo and Ric accepted that with a nod. 

Once they were in the other room, Josie sat on one of the beds while Kai sat on the other one across from her. “What is it, kiddo?” he asked her. 

“I’ve been doing some dark magic lately,” she admitted looking at the floor. 

“There’s nothing wrong with small amounts of dark magic as long as you don’t overdo it,” Kai told her. “And use it responsibly,” he added quickly. 

“Is it normal to feel drawn to it?” she asked worriedly. 

“That’s a different story,” Kai told her. “That means that your system is being overwhelmed by it. See all magicals, siphoners or not, cleanse dark magic from their system automatically. That’s why it should be used sparingly. Too much or too often and your body can’t keep up and that’s when you start feeling the draw. It can cause negative emotions to come to the surface which then feeds the dark magic and you get caught in a vicious cycle.”

“I haven’t been using that much though. Just a little bit here and there,” Josie assured him, eyes begging him to believe her. 

“Okay, so that means that your system isn’t cleansing it like it should, which is how the darkness starts for siphoners, but it can still be fixed,” he promised. 

“How?” she asked desperately. 

“First, we need to see how bad it is. Give me your hand?” he reached out to her and she placed her hand in his without question. 

“That feels weird,” she scrunched up her face. 

Kai chuckled. “I’m sure it does. I’m basically poking around your magic.”

“You can do that?” Josie asked curiously, the conversation helping to keep her mind off the weird feeling. 

“Sure. It’s related to sensing magic, which I’ll teach you girls how to do.”

“We already can a little bit, but nothing like this.”

“Yeah, it can be partially instinctual, but there is a lot deeper you can go. Being trapped in the prison world without any magicals around, I was kinda thrown in the deep end as far as that goes and had no choice but to learn how to sense magic so I could find some to siphon,” Kai explained. “It’s how I found all kinds of magically hidden places all over the world and learned so much.”

“That’s really cool,” Josie said with a grin. “Will you take us to some of those places?”

“We’ll see,” Kai told her. “Most of them we can’t get to in this world. They’re in protected areas or populated areas where breaking the spellwork could cause damage and hurt people and stuff, but there are some we could get to.”

“That would be awesome,” she said in awe as Kai let go of her hand and sat back. “So how bad is it?” her mind was brought back to the problem. 

“Not too bad. We caught it in plenty of time to fix it, but we’ll need to let your parents know,” Kai told her. 

“Why?” she asked worriedly. 

“Because you need to take in such a massive influx of magic that it will knock you out for a few days and they’ll panic if they don’t know what’s going on.”

“Are you gonna tell them about the dark magic and stuff too?” 

“I don’t see any reason they need to know that part,” Kai told her. “Just promise me that if you do start to feel the pull towards the dark magic again, that you’ll at least let me know. And talk to Bonnie about how to use dark magic safely if you’re going to use it. Officially though, I have to tell you not to use it at all.” 

Josie giggled and nodded. She got that. He would help her and keep her secrets but he still had to be an adult and follow her parents wishes at the same time. “I promise I won’t use it unless it’s necessary and I’ll be careful if I do.” 

“Good enough,” Kai said with a smile. “Let’s go back?” He wondered if his sister was worried about him being alone with her daughter and he was more than surprised that she allowed it at all after their past. 

As they got up to head back, Josie hugged him tightly first. “Thanks, Uncle Kai.” 

Kai hugged her back gratefully and kissed her head. “Anytime, Josie.”


	14. Chapter 14

When they got back, Kai told them all, “Josie does have the beginning phases of the issue, but it can be fixed.” 

“What do we need to do?” Jo asked desperately. She kept trying to remind herself that she couldn’t have known any of this, but she still felt like a failure as a mother. 

“She needs a massive influx of pure magic to kick her system back into gear. It’ll knock her unconscious for a few days though as it works,” Kai explained. 

“Where are we going to get enough magic?” Ric asked thoughtfully. 

“There are dozens of places in the world where we could get it. Thousands if you count the ones that we /shouldn’t/ like Stonehenge and stuff. But I don’t think you realize just how much of a magical nexus this school has become,” Kai told them. 

“Magical nexus?” Bonnie asked curiously. “Here?” 

“This many witches under one roof casting magic all the time…it’s imbued the entire building,” Kai explained. 

“We siphon from the walls and furniture and stuff whenever we need to cast a spell,” Lizzie admitted as she cuddled the little girl in her lap, just soaking up the ambient magic. 

“So that’s what Josie needs to do. Not just enough for a spell though. She needs to yank as much as she can as fast as she can and completely flood her system.”

“Will that cause any problems like all the cave-ins and stuff when we were exploring?” Bonnie asked worriedly. 

“No. The cave-ins happened when the magic was the only thing keeping the place standing. This house is plenty sturdy enough without the magical help. And that’s even if she ends up taking it all which isn’t likely without an intentional controlled siphon that goes slow enough to adjust to it all at once.”

“But it will be harder for us to get magic from the building when we need it?” Josie asked, cuddling Ser again. 

“Maybe, but not likely for long. With all these witches here, the magic will build back up in no time,” Kai explained. 

“Okay, let’s do this then,” Jo said. 

“It would probably be best to wait until curfew,” Bonnie suggested. “Doing it from a central area is usually most effective and that way we don’t have to worry so much about being interrupted or risk all this getting out.” 

“It’ll be okay until then?” Ric asked Kai. 

“Oh yeah. She would probably be completely fine for another year or two even before it really started to manifest.” 

“Okay, tonight it is then.” 

“Good,” Josie sighed relieved. “So since that’s all settled, is it true that Damon Salvatore and Elena Gilbert are back too?” 

“Will we get to meet them too?” Lizzie asked hopefully. 

Bonnie and Kai laughed as they said, “We were all planning to meet them and their family for lunch very soon actually.”

“Uncle Damon is the awesomest,” little Kai told them. 

Bonnie shook her head amusedly. “Yes, Damon is very much the stereotypical ‘fun uncle’ even to his own kids.” That brought up the vampire baby explanation again after which it was time for lunch and Ric suggested one of the unused conference rooms on this level as a makeshift dining hall for them. Sixteen people in one dorm room would be a very tight fit. Even if seven of them were tiny. 

Ric and Jo dragooned Josie and Lizzie into helping get the food while Kai went to get the rest of their group and bring them to the conference room for lunch. As soon as Jeremy saw Bonnie he swept her up into a hug which she returned with a happy squeal. “Look at you,” she laughed as she stepped back and gripped his shoulders. “You got old,” she teased. 

“Yeah…well…you didn’t,” he said with a laugh. 

“One thing about prison worlds…they definitely help you age gracefully when time doesn’t pass,” she grinned. “Come here and meet the rest of my family. This is my husband, Kai.”

Kai reached out for Jeremy’s hand as he asked amusedly, “So you’re the ex huh?” 

“Sure am. Careful I don’t steal her back,” Jeremy joked, pulling a laugh from Kai before being introduced to the kids. 

By the time those introductions were done, the rest of the group was back with carts of food. Josie and Lizzie both froze when they went in looking at Damon who was carrying Lynn on his hip. “Holy crap he’s even more gorgeous in person,” Lizzie whispered to Josie. 

“Shh, he’s a vampire. He can hear you,” Josie whispered back. 

Damon snorted in amusement and winked at the girls who blushed brightly, but he didn’t say anything as the official introductions were given and they all sat down to eat. Lizzie and Josie found three more cuddlebugs among the vampire kids, especially after it was brought up that they were siphon witches, and they were beyond touched at the way all the kids just immediately rallied around them to help however they could. 

Lizzie and Josie were more than a little taken aback when they noticed Artemis skulking around, and Lizzie couldn’t help but shriek when the jaguar came up and started sniffing her. “It’s okay,” Elena chuckled. “She won’t hurt you. I told her you were family so she’s just getting your scent.” 

“She’s tame?” Josie asked curiously, but still a little nervous. When Elena nodded she asked, “Can I pet her?” 

“Her favorite spots are just behind her ears and at the back of her jaw,” Elena told them. 

Josie reached out hesitantly to scratch her behind the ears and chuckled as the big cat put her head in Josie’s lap. It took Lizzie a few more minutes to overcome her nerves to reach out and pet her too. “Her fur is so soft,” Lizzie said in awe. 

“That’s because the kids love to brush her every chance they get,” Damon laughed. “And she’s spoiled rotten because of it.” 

“Did you raise her from a baby?” Josie asked. “Is that why she’s so tame?” 

“No, time doesn’t pass in the prison world so she hasn’t aged since we got her any more than we have. Only the kids could age there since they were born there,” Bonnie told her. 

“She’s tame because I have a mind link with her,” Elena explained. 

“Just like I have a mind link with Ares,” Damon added. 

“Ares?” Ric was the one to ask. 

“A harpy eagle. He doesn’t like being indoors much so he’s been out on the grounds,” Damon explained. Ares was a lot more independent than Artemis. 

“How does a mind link work?” Jo asked curiously. 

“Is that like how Damon always used to use that raven to freak people out?” Jeremy asked. 

Elena laughed at that reminder. “Yeah it’s just like that. It’s kind of like advanced compulsion techniques.”

“Does it work for people too?” Josie asked worriedly. 

“No, it only works for animals. The presence of self-awareness in humans and supernaturals won’t allow it to take hold,” Damon told them. 

“And linking with more than one animal at a time can be difficult since some part of your mind is always aware of what the animal in question is aware of and there’s only so much a person can keep track of,” Elena added. 

“We’ve had Artemis and Ares for about nine years now,” Bonnie told them. “When we were working our way through the amazon while the twins were toddlers Artemis tried to eat them, but Elena tackled her and did the mental link thing and she’s been our fiercest protector ever since. And a pretty good babysitter too,” she laughed. 

“And Damon decided that he had to have a cool pet too so he went chasing after Ares for like two hours before he managed to catch him,” Kai laughed.

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me in the slightest,” Ric laughed along with him. 

It was midafternoon before Elena said, “Oh, Ric. I keep forgetting to ask, but do you have anyone here who’s any good with video editing?” 

“I can,” Josie spoke up. “I really like putting videos and stuff together.”

“What kind of videos?” Ric asked before anyone could respond to Josie. 

“Well I’m sure you can imagine how crappy that kind of stuff was back in the nineties, so we’ve got over half a dozen different angles of our weddings and were hoping to find someone to put it together and maybe even put some music to it or something.”

“Oh please let me!” Josie asked excitedly. She couldn’t wait to see them. 

Ric held up a hand to Josie. “And these videos are appropriate for teenagers to watch?” he felt the need to ask. With Damon you never knew. Especially given that they had been the only four people in the world so there was nothing to stop them all from spending all day every day naked. 

“Yes, we are,” Damon laughed. Both couples did have their ‘private collections’, but nothing anyone else would ever see. 

“Then yeah. Josie could do it if that’s okay with you,” Ric agreed. 

“Perfect. We’ll get you the videos tomorrow,” Elena promised. “We want to show them off tonight once Stefan and Caroline get here, even if they are unedited so once we get them to you there’s no rush.”

“Oh and I can design something for the DVD case,” Lizzie offered excitedly, wanting to be a part of it too. 

“That would be perfect,” Damon grinned at her. He fully planned to pay them for it, but wasn’t going to say anything until he saw the finished projects. 

As the kids got more comfortable with the extra people they started getting a little more boisterous and before long were running around the room playing and climbing on everything and everyone while the adults talked and the teenagers went back and forth between talking with them and playing with the kids and the rest of the afternoon was spent that way. 

They all shared dinner as well before Lizzie and Josie left to do their homework. They arranged to meet in the library half an hour after curfew to get Josie taken care of first though. Since they were decided on staying here for the time being and had their rooms sorted, both couples took the time to sort out their belongings and Kai and Bonnie moved theirs to their new room while they waited for Stefan and Caroline.


	15. Chapter 15

With all the excitement of the day, the kids were getting tired and cranky. So much so that there were multiple full blown tantrums at bedtime from the kids that wanted to stay up and meet Uncle Stefan and Aunt Caroline. Half of them burst into tears while the other half exploded into tantrums and Ric, Jo, and Jeremy all got a good look at just how chaotic things could get as they tried to stay out of the line of fire. Damien and Gabe were the ringleaders of the tantrums joined by Steffi and Ser. Damien, unfortunately, inherited his father’s temper and Gabe, while it took more to set him off, was just as bad once he got going. 

It didn’t take long for things to get seriously out of hand as Gabe started throwing spells around while Damien blurred for the door in an attempt to make a break for it. Damon blurred after him and picked him up under one arm before blurring over to Gabe after his second spell that Kai was absorbing, and picked him up the same way. “Are you two /seriously/ going to make me punish you in front of everyone?” he asked dangerously. 

Both kids gulped heavily and even the rest of them froze. “No, Daddy,” Damien said nervously at the same time Gabe said, “No, Uncle Damon.” 

“Good. Now get your little butts to bed /now/,” he snapped. Naturally he had never actually hurt any of the kids, but the still had a healthy dose of respect for his temper and none of them wanted to be the final straw to make him actually lose it so they scattered like confetti. Once they were all gone, most of the adults burst into laughter as Damon sighed. “God, I need a drink.” 

Ric, reached into his inside pocket and handed his flask over. “Here you go, buddy.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” Damon chuckled as he took a long drink from the flask before the four parents among them went to tuck them in. While Damon’s temper tended to be the shortest, Elena and Bonnie also had pretty nasty tempers when they were pushed too far. It just didn’t usually get that far before Damon’s snapped. Kai was the only one among them that didn’t have a temper, as long as his magic levels stayed stable at least. He was too afraid of what he might do if he lost his temper to really allow himself to do so. 

When the time came to meet Lizzie and Josie in the library, Damon went along to provide the muscle and Kai went along to guide her through the process, but Bonnie and Elena stayed back, not wanting all of them to get too far from the kids. Once Josie passed out, Damon, as was his job, caught her before she could fall and carried her up to Ric and Jo’s rooms where both the girls would stay that night. Lizzie was beyond jealous over Josie getting to be carried like that by Damon, but since she was unconscious and had no idea, it wasn’t that bad. 

Jo stayed up to be close to the girls and keep an eye on Josie and the guys were on their way back when Ric stopped as the front door opened. Damon and Kai were still walking ahead and talking, not paying any attention to it, until Damon froze when he heard a voice. “Ric…there you are. What was so important that we had to drop everything and jump on a plane to get here immediately?” 

Damon took that moment to turn around. “Guess who, little brother?” he smirked. 

“Damon…” Stefan breathed out. 

“Oh my god…” Caroline gasped as her hands covered her mouth. 

“Is this real?” Stefan asked in almost a whisper as he rushed forward. “Are you…” 

Damon grabbed him in a crushing hug. “I’m really back, Stef,” he assured him as Stefan’s arms wrapped around him just as tightly and lifted him in the air as he spun his brother around and Damon laughed. “It’s great to see you too, brother.” 

“I can’t believe this…how? Why?” Stefan asked in awe as he stepped away to look at his brother. 

“Elena and Bonnie?” Caroline asked hopefully as she stepped forward. 

“Come on. We’ll take you to them and explain everything there,” Damon told them. “This is Kai. My best friend and surrogate brother. He came back with us.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Caroline said cheerfully as Stefan just nodded. 

Ric followed them as far as the barrier to invite Stefan and Caroline back before he said, “I’ll give you guys some time. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

No sooner than they stepped into the room, three ear piecing squeals ran out as Caroline ran straight for Elena and Bonnie who met her in the middle for a group hug accompanied by lots of bouncing and even more squealing. All three of the guys laughed and shook their heads as Damon said wryly, “I really hope you put the silencing spells over the kids’ rooms already.” 

That got another squeal from Caroline. “Kids? You have kids?” she asked Bonnie excitedly. 

“We both do,” Elena grinned. 

“Wait, what? But you’re both vampires…how?” Caroline asked with wide-eyes. 

First they explained about the prison world before getting to the elixir and Caroline immediately cottoned onto what that meant. “So it would still be there in this world though? We could go get it?” she asked desperately. 

“Care, no,” Stefan shook his head. “We can’t risk it. If I fall off the wagon again…and what if the ripper gene is hereditary.”

Caroline went from elated to devastated in a heartbeat as Elena and Bonnie led her over to the bed and Damon addressed the issue. “See we thought of that too. Which is why we brought you something better,” he smirked as Kai headed over to the bag and dug around until he found it. 

When Stefan saw the box that Damon took from Kai his eyes widened, and when his brother put it in his hands he traced over the familiar writings in awe. “Is this really…”

“The cure, yes,” Damon told him. 

“But Elena…”

“Is perfectly happy with her life and there is no way I’m gonna try and raise three vampire kids as a human,” Elena laughed. 

“But they won’t be kids forever,” Caroline pointed out. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Elena told her. “They’ll still live forever. And I plan to live forever with them and especially with my husband. I actually enjoy being a vampire now and wouldn’t give it up for anything.” 

“So this is yours, little brother,” Damon assured him. “And since it can be shared between two people, you and blondie can become human together and live the dream.” 

“I don’t know…” Stefan said hesitantly. 

“You don’t have to decide now,” Elena told him. “Just hold onto it and take it when or if you want to.” 

“Thank you guys. Really,” Stefan said with tears in his eyes. 

“How did you get it though without the hunter’s mark to fuel the spell to get in?” Caroline asked. 

“Well that’s where Kai here came in,” Damon grinned clapping a hand on the witch’s shoulder. 

“I’m a siphoner which means all we had to do was find the entrance and I sucked up all the magic blocking us,” Kai explained. 

“Of course we couldn’t be lucky enough for that to drop the wall in front of us though so I had to punch through that. From there, with no Silas or treacherous teammates, it was just a matter of walking in and picking it up,” Damon finished the story. 

“Okay enough of the boring stuff. Tell me about your kids,” Caroline prompted. “You said you had three?” she asked Elena, still trying to wrap her head around the idea of Damon as a father. 

“Yeah. Damien Jeremy is seven, Stefanie Alaria is five, and Carolyn Eliza is four,” Elena told her. 

Both Stefan and Caroline teared up at the names. “You named your daughter for me, brother?” Stefan asked Damon in awe.

“Obviously,” Damon chuckled. “Steffi was named for both my brothers that were left behind and Lynn for both of our best friends.”

“My mom…” Caroline realized as the tears fell from her eyes. 

“Your mom was my best friend,” Damon told Caroline. “I was sorry to hear what happened to her.”

“Thank you,” Caroline sniffled. Even after sixteen years she felt the loss. Then she turned to Bonnie. “Okay your turn. How many kids do you have?” 

“I have four,” Bonnie told her. “Malakai Rudolphus and Gabriel Remus are twins and they’re ten, Carolina Rose is seven and Serenity Dawn is five.” 

“You named a kid after me too?” Caroline asked overcome with emotion. 

“Of course I did,” Bonnie told her. “We’ve been best friends our whole lives.” 

“I don’t suppose you managed to bring pictures back, did you?” Stefan asked hopefully resisting the urge to ask them to wake the kids up so they could meet them and wishing they had taken Ric a little more seriously when he said ‘immediately’.

“Did we ever,” Kai laughed as Elena dove for the thumb drives.


	16. Chapter 16

Elena quickly found the personal drives since she had come up with the organization method herself, and asked, “Okay so do we want to start from now and work our way back or from when they were born and work our way forward?” 

“Okay wait,” Caroline said thoughtfully. “You said that you were all married. Did you actually have a wedding? And do you have pictures from that?” 

“We have better than pictures,” Bonnie grinned. “We have video too.”

Caroline squealed happily. “Okay, start there then,” she said bouncing excitedly. 

“No, I have a better idea,” Damon smirked. “Start from the…”

“Oo yeah…I know,” Elena cut him off. “I got it.” 

Kai snorted. “It never ceases to be annoying when they do that.”

“Oh like you two don’t do the same thing,” Damon chuckled. “How long have you two been married?” he asked Stefan and Caroline. 

“Almost ten years,” Stefan told him. 

“Yeah, so I’m sure they do the same thing too,” Damon said. 

“Sometimes,” Caroline admitted. 

“Okay, I’m ready. Bonnie?” Elena said as she got the right drive loaded up. 

“On it,” Bonnie said doing a projection spell and the computer screen showed blown up on the empty wall. 

“Okay that’s awesome,” Caroline said with a grin. 

“Bonnie wrote that spell when we realized how hard it was to all crowd around one computer screen,” Kai told them. 

“Here we go,” Elena said with a smirk as she pulled up the first picture on the drive. 

“Oh my god!” Caroline gasped. “You both look so beautiful. Those dresses are to die for and…oh my god! Is that the Eiffel Tower?!” 

“Yep,” Damon smirked. “This was the one year anniversary of our arrival in the prison world. After we decided to stop moping and start enjoying ourselves.” 

“How did you get there?” Stefan asked. 

“I learned how to fly a plane,” Damon told him. 

“And you three were crazy enough to get in a plane he was flying?” Caroline asked amusedly. 

“Why do you think it took us a year to get there?” Bonnie asked. “It took that long before death seemed like a reasonable option,” she joked and Damon threw a pillow at her. 

When Elena clicked to the next picture, they all laughed at the silly faces Bonnie and Elena were doing. When they got to the first picture of Damon and Elena, even Caroline sucked in a sharp breath. No one could deny that Damon was hot as hell and in a full tux complete with white gloves and the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop the entire picture was breathtaking. When they got to the pictures of Bonnie and Kai, Caroline immediately picked up on the fact that, “You two weren’t together yet?” 

“This was the night they got together,” Elena grinned as she clicked through a few more before she got to the video and hit play. 

As they watched the couples dance around, Stefan was reminded of how good of a dancer his brother was. And the fact that he truly enjoyed it far more than Stefan ever would. After the first song Damon started getting impatient. “Skip ahead to the kiss.” 

Elena laughed and clicked ahead a few times before she found the right spot and when Bonnie and Kai’s lips met the couple in question blushed lightly as Caroline squealed happily and clapped. They skipped around the video for a little longer, not watching the entire four hours, but little bits here and there before they moved on to the rest of the still photos including the ones they’d gotten of the kiss. When Elena pulled the drive, Caroline pouted, “That’s it?” 

“That’s all of that night,” Elena told her. “If we go through all the pictures we have it’ll take weeks. We’re all a bit shutterbuggy.” 

“Okay what’s next?” Caroline asked. 

“Next is Damon’s and my wedding,” she grinned. “This was about two years in.” She pulled out the drive and put it in the computer. “Now since there was just the four of us we didn’t have anyone to really operate cameras so we have seven different videos from seven different angles. For now we’re just gonna watch my favorite.”

“Tomorrow we’re getting copies of all of it to Josie so she can edit it all together,” Kai told them. 

Elena started the video and Caroline gasped at the image of her coming into the amazing cathedral and Stefan’s breath caught at the sight too before he snickered at the look on his brother’s face. It was a very simple ceremony obviously and only took about ten minutes before Damon was carrying her back down the aisle and the video ended. As Elena moved ahead to the still photos Caroline asked, “Where is that?” 

“The Milan cathedral,” Damon told her. 

“Italy,” Stefan nodded. “Fitting. Back to our roots.” 

“I thought so too,” Damon grinned as the pictures continued to scroll past. 

Once it was done, Bonnie said, “Okay, now ours.” 

“Where did you two get married?” Stefan asked. 

“In a cave by the sea in Australia,” Kai said. 

“This one also has multiple angles, so we’re gonna go with Bonnie’s favorite,” Elena said as she started up the video and both Stefan and Caroline gasped at the way Bonnie was literally glowing as they watched the short simple ceremony and laughed at the end when Kai tried and failed to be as effortless as Damon with carrying Bonnie out. 

“Those were both such amazingly beautiful weddings,” Caroline said with tears in her eyes as they watched the still photos. “I can’t wait to see what Josie does with them.”

“Me either,” Bonnie said with a grin. 

“Okay, now we can move on to the kids,” Elena said as she grabbed another drive. It started with Bonnie very pregnant and included pictures of all of them, some playful, some sweet and then Elena backed out rather than clicking next and then reopened it with a picture of Bonnie with a twin in each arm leaning on Kai who was half behind her and half beside her as they both looked at the babies with pure love and devotion. The next pictures were close ups of the babies that had Caroline cooing. 

“We’re just gonna skip around randomly from here,” Elena chuckled. “There were dozens of pictures every day pretty much.”

“Who delivered them?” Stefan asked curiously. 

“I delivered the twins,” Elena told him. “Damon delivered the rest of the kids.” 

“Damon?!” both Stefan and Caroline said in shock, heads snapping around to look at him. 

“What?” Damon shrugged. “Elena and Bonnie conspired to have the others so close together that neither of them could. Someone had to and Kai has a little fainting issue.” 

“Once,” Kai protested as everyone laughed. “I fainted once.”

“Well we could hardly risk it happening again in the middle of a delivery now could we?” Damon teased. 

“He’s got you there, babe,” Bonnie laughed snuggling deeper into her husband’s arms as they all watched the random pictures coming up. 

Elena pulled the drive out and put in the next one. They had about a year’s worth of pictures on each drive so this one was mostly in the jungle. “You took one year old babies hiking through the jungle for a year?” Stefan asked incredulously. 

“A little more than a year actually,” Bonnie told him. “And Damon and Elena with their vamp strength and endurance did most of the carrying when we were moving.” 

“It’s not like we took them into any of the ruins or temples or anything. Aside from once and that was only after it was cleared of any curses or other potentially harmful magic,” Damon told him as the pictures continued to change. 

“Are they laying on a leopard?” Caroline asked with wide eyes. 

“A jaguar actually,” Elena told her. “That’s Artemis. I’ve got a mind link with her.” 

“And that’s Ares,” Damon said as the next picture came up with him holding both twins with Ares on his shoulder as the babies pet him. “He’s mine.”

“So we had plenty of protection,” Bonnie explained. 

Caroline shrieked at the next picture that came up and buried her head in Stefan’s neck. “To prove the point,” Elena chuckled. 

“We measured that beauty at twenty five feet,” Damon said with a smirk. “Artemis attacked when it went for the babies while Bonnie put up a barrier spell and dragged them back and Ares was dive bombing it and clawing the crap out of it. I had been out gathering firewood and Elena was deep in a tomb, so when Ares let me know what was going on I rushed back and finished the sucker off.” 

“Artemis was hurt pretty bad, but I was able to heal her up and we let her and Ares eat most of the anaconda as a reward,” Bonnie finished the story as Elena changed the picture and Caroline unburied her face. 

“This is the one and only time the kids went into a temple. It was where we found the information on the elixir that allowed Damon and I to have kids. We all had to see that one for ourselves,” Elena explained as the picture came up of the almost two year olds climbing on the altar.

The next drive included Elena’s first pregnancy and Bonnie’s second. There were a lot of pictures of the side by side baby bumps along with the twins, and even a few of Damon kissing Elena’s swollen belly that made Caroline ‘aww’ again. By the time the twins were three it was completely obvious that they were identical and Caroline asked, “How can you tell them apart?” 

“Kai’s the only one that /always/ can,” Bonnie admitted. “The rest of us are pretty good at it because of different mannerisms and such, but he’s the only one that can sense magic and since little Kai is a siphoner he’s never fooled.” 

Elena’s first delivery had video instead of just still photos and when she asked if they wanted to watch it, Stefan was the first to say, “Absolutely.” When Caroline looked at him funny, Stefan explained, “Tell me you don’t want to see Damon trying to deliver a baby.” 

Caroline laughed but nodded. “Okay. You have a point.”

“Just to warn you, this was a very difficult delivery and if we’d been human, we both would have died many times over, but it was still the first ever vampire baby born so we wanted to record it for posterity,” Elena told them and they looked a little less gleeful at the idea, but still wanted to see. 

They didn’t watch the whole thing of course, but skipped around. Both Stefan and Caroline were more than impressed with how well Damon held it together. There was more than once that they could tell he was on the verge of panic, but he didn’t actually cross that line. The bond between Kai and Damon was more obvious than ever there too as Kai helped to keep him calm whenever he started to freak. 

None of the other births had video and they looked through pictures long into the night. It was after three am before they reached the present, even with skipping around more and more as they got older. “It looks like you’ve all had a wonderful life despite the fact that you were in a prison world,” Stefan said with a smile at his brother. 

“We did,” Damon nodded. “The only thing that could have made it better was the rest of the family being there.” 

“We really need to get at least a little sleep before the kids wake up,” Kai realized the time. 

“You two might as well crash in here,” Elena offered to Stefan and Caroline knowing that Kai and Bonnie needed to be in their own room for when their kids went looking. “We can get you a room tomorrow.”


	17. Chapter 17

They had only been sleeping for a few hours when Stefan heard a little voice say, “Daddy. Hungry,” and he cracked his eyes open to see a little girl, Lynn he realized from the pictures, poking Damon awake. 

Damon groaned and rolled to his back, sitting up as Damien excitedly asked, “Is that Uncle Stefan and Aunt Caroline?” 

“Shh,” Damon put a finger to his lips. “It is but they were up really late last night so we’re gonna let them sleep for a while and go in the other room,” he whispered as he got up and grabbed a handful of blood bags from the cooler.

“No need. We’re up,” Caroline said sleepily as she sat up while Elena dragged herself out of bed too. 

“Sorry,” Elena said sheepishly. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Stefan told her. “We wouldn’t want to wait any longer to meet our nieces and nephew either.”

There was a quick introduction to the kids as they sipped on their blood breakfast and Caroline gratefully accepted a blood bag when Damon offered. “I’m gonna go grab one of the school bags,” Stefan told them, seeing everyone else with a blood bag was getting to him and making his own hunger flare up. 

“I’ll go with you,” Caroline offered, finishing her blood quickly. “We have a lot of people to bring back breakfast for anyway.”

In the hallway, they ran into Jeremy who had the same idea and they all headed to the dining hall, meeting Ric and Jo there. They loaded up a few carts with a good spread as Stefan’s ears caught something interesting and he tuned into the conversation. “See I told you Damon Salvatore and them were back.” 

Kaleb rolled his eyes. “What makes you so sure that I’ll believe you now when I didn’t then? Just because some of these gullible idiots do…”

“Look over there,” MG told him. “That’s Stefan and Caroline Salvatore and the guy with them…that’s Jeremy Gilbert. Elena’s brother. Why else would the Gilberts and Salvatores be gathering here?” 

“I don’t know…” Kaleb started to doubt himself. 

“Lizzie!” MG spotted her. “Help me out here. I know your parents pulled you out of classes yesterday, so you have to know about Damon Salvatore and everyone else being back.” 

Stefan caught Lizzie’s eyes as she looked around nervously and he nodded. He didn’t want to put her on the spot of having to lie and being put in the middle of things. “Okay, yes they’re back. Along with their kids…”

“See now I know you’re pulling our legs. Vampires can’t have kids,” Kaleb argued and Stefan tuned out of the conversation as they headed out of the room, back towards the secluded wing. 

Once they were all gathered in the conference room for breakfast, Stefan told them, “You’re going to have to make some kind of announcement or something about this, Ric.”

“What? Why?” Damon asked worriedly. 

“The school is starting to divide,” Stefan warned. “Those who believe the rumors about your return, and those who don’t. And Lizzie is currently being mobbed for information.” 

Elena sighed and nodded. “Maybe we shouldn’t have come here.”

“Where else would we have gone?” Kai asked. “This was our home, we ended up right outside, and it’s not like we knew it was a school until we had already been spotted.” 

“Kai’s right. This isn’t our fault. But it does need to be addressed.”

“I don’t want the kids to end up being mobbed,” Damon told Ric. “If you can find a way to do this while preventing that…you do what you need to do.” 

“I’ll handle it,” Ric promised before heading out to do just that. Since it was a school day, most everyone should be at breakfast at least. 

He realized how right Stefan was and that he’d gotten the warning just in time as the room was clearly divided and the tension could be cut with a knife. “Can I have everyone’s attention!” He called as he moved to the stairs so they could all see him. Once all the noise stopped he said started the speech he’d been planning in his mind on his way here. “I know that there have been a lot of rumors going around, so I’m going to give the facts. Two days ago, Kai and Bonnie Bennett along with Damon and Elena Salvatore returned along with their children.” 

The place erupted into chatter at those words. Among the yelled questions he could make out were, “Returned from where?” “Vampires can’t have kids,” and “Weren’t they dead?” 

He held up his hands for quiet and waited until he got it to continue. “While we all thought they were dead, it turned out that with the collapse of the other side, they were shunted into a prison world where they have lived their lives for the last sixteen years. In this world, there was a method for vampires to be able to have children of their own, but it’s not possible in this world and there is no way for them to make it possible so don’t bother them about the matter. But yes, they do have children, as do the Bennetts. These children have spent their entire lives in a world devoid of any people but each other though, so I will ask you all to please respect their privacy.”

“Is that why the back wing is blocked off?” someone called out. 

“Yes. It is. They would like a few days to settle in and reconnect with the friends and family that they left behind before facing the rest of the world. When they do come out, I will ask you all not to crowd them. By all means, say hello. Be polite. But don’t rush them or bombard them with questions, particularly if the kids are with them.” 

“I wouldn’t want to be the one that scared Damon Salvatore’s kids,” MG said loudly with a laugh. Damon’s reputation was legendary and no one wanted to be on his bad side. 

Ric decided to ignore that comment, mostly because there was nothing to say to it. While he was relatively certain that Damon wouldn’t permanently harm any of the students and he would definitely do what he could to prevent any harm, he wasn’t going to promise they would be okay. Not when it would potentially encourage them not to listen to his warnings in the first place. Thankfully there was another question that sidetracked him from needing to. “How come Lizzie and Josie get to meet them?” Kaleb asked irritated. 

“Because for one thing, Damon Salvatore was like a brother to me before he was lost so they are family that way. Also Kai Bennett is my wife’s twin brother that was lost almost forty years ago, so they are family by blood to the Bennetts,” Ric told them. “And you will not overwhelm Lizzie and Josie with questions either.” 

“Where is Josie?” someone asked from the back.

“She is working on a project right now and will be back in a few days,” Ric told them and that’s all they were going to get. The rest was personal. “Now you should all get to class.” 

Once they had dispersed, Ric headed back to the rest of the group as they were all finishing breakfast. He wanted to update them on what all he’d told the students before he asked, “When do you think you’ll be up for venturing out?”

“Definitely not today,” Bonnie shook her head. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“But I do want a guy’s night tonight. At a real bar with other people,” Damon chuckled. 

“Amen to that,” Kai agreed. 

“I have a faculty meeting after classes let out, but I’m free after that,” Ric told them. 

“Jer? Stef?” Damon asked. 

“I’m totally in,” Jeremy said with a grin. 

“Me too,” Stefan agreed. He wasn’t much for the bar scene, but celebrating his brother’s homecoming was a different story. 

“Oooh then we can have a girl’s night,” Caroline said excitedly. 

“It’ll have to be a girl’s night in with the kids tonight,” Elena pointed out. 

“But tomorrow will be our turn to go out and have some fun. You’ll come too, right Jo?” Bonnie asked hopefully. 

“Sure. Sounds like fun,” she grinned, glad to be included and wanting to get to know her new sister in law better too. The fact that her sister in law was the famous Bonnie Bennett was just a plus in her book. 

Ric and Jo headed out soon after. They had a school to run and the work had been piling up the last couple days, but they promised to be back after classes and the faculty meeting. The rest of the day was spent catching up and with Jeremy, Stefan, and Caroline doting on the kids.


	18. Chapter 18

Once they settled in at the bar, Kai looked around uncomfortably. “It is so weird being here with other people again.”

“And when we can’t just hop behind the bar and grab whatever we want,” Damon added amusedly. 

“So you guys drank here a lot in the prison world?” Stefan asked curiously. 

“At least once a month,” Kai told them. “Though we took a drinking night once a week. It was just usually in the lounge at the house.” 

“We had better booze,” Damon explained. 

“One of many things that’s changed,” Ric chuckled. “Can’t have a bar in a school full of kids.”

“I should hope not,” a voice came from behind them. As they turned to look, his eyes widened. “Damon Salvatore. It really is you. Holy crap,” Matt said, not really sure how to feel about that. 

“Yep. Back from the dead…finally,” Damon smirked. “I see you’ve moved up in the world...Sheriff is it?”

“You’re Matt?” Kai jumped in before the tension could get any thicker. “Bonnie and Elena talk about you a lot.”

“Are they back too?” Matt asked hopefully. Elena always had been the only one who could keep Damon in line even if it weren’t for the fact that he would love to see her again. 

“Sure are. The wives are home with the kids tonight, but they’ll be coming out tomorrow night,” Damon told him, making very sure the ‘wives’ and ‘kids’ part of that statement was prominent. 

“You’re married? And have kids now? Wow. That’s…great…congratulations,” Matt said, completely unable to wrap his mind around the idea of Damon as a husband and father.

“Yeah, Elena and I have three kids and Bonnie and Kai here have four,” Damon told him. 

“Well, I’m happy for you, but you should know that things have changed around here since you left…”

“Yes, I’ve heard about the threats to shut the school down if the supernatural intrudes on your precious town in any way,” Damon sneered. “I do hope that drinking at the bar doesn’t impede on your precious rules.” 

“As long as it’s only alcohol you’re drinking,” Matt said tensely. 

“It is,” Ric said seriously. “We have a deal and I intend to keep it.”

“Well I /don’t/ have a deal and I object to small town sheriffs trying to order me around,” Damon said with his trademark lazy coldness. 

“Damon, seriously? You’ve been back for two days and you’re already looking for a fight?” Stefan asked tiredly. 

Kai rolled his eyes. Even he knew that Stefan’s comment was the way to get Damon more interested in a fight, not less. “And I object to pissy vampires coming to town and killing people,” Matt said with narrowed eyes. 

“You know what? Go ahead and shut down the school,” Damon said with an icy smirk, ignoring Ric’s protest. “Then all those kids get released into the world with no guidance and no help. How many people do you think are gonna die then? And you can just wonder how much better things might have been if you weren’t quite so closed-minded.” 

Kai reached out a hand to put on Damon’s arm, and said, “Easy, brother. Just give us a sec would you?” He got up and went over to Matt. “A word?” he motioned to the back corner. 

Matt narrowed his eyes at the stranger but nodded curtly and stepped away, not taking his eyes off Damon as he did. “And you are?” 

“Sorry. I’m Kai Bennett. Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Matt said tensely. 

Since that was out of the way, Kai moved on to the actual point. “First off, attitude aside, Damon’s right about the school and I think you know that.”

Matt huffed and nodded. “That doesn’t mean I’m just gonna stand aside and let them kill people either.”

“You’re the only one that’s mentioned killing,” Kai pointed out. “Just…give Damon a break okay? The last sheriff…the one who was here when he was anyway…was his best friend. He even named his daughter after her. Then he gets back two days ago and finds out that she’s dead and now you’re wearing her uniform and antagonizing him…”

Matt sighed as he considered that point of view. He had known that Damon and Sheriff Forbes were friends, but he’d always assumed that it was an act on Damon’s part. To stay on the inside and manipulate things. To know that he’d named a kid after her changed things. He couldn’t imagine coming back home after beating death to find out that your best friend didn’t. “Okay. I guess I get that.” 

“Why don’t you just try asking him nicely to honor the same deal he had with her,” Kai suggested. 

“What deal did he have with her?” Matt asked curiously. He’d never considered that there was one. 

“Ask him…if you drop the attitude, I’m sure he will too,” Kai told him, knowing that Damon was listening to every word. 

“Fine,” Matt agreed and went back over to the group. “Mind if I join you?” he asked cordially. 

“As long as you can do so politely,” Damon said carefully, trying to keep the steel out of his voice. 

Stefan looked curiously at Kai, wondering how he’d gotten his brother to play nice so easily and he resolved to ask later, but for now Matt was talking. “I’m sorry about Liz,” he said. “She was a hell of a woman.” 

“That she was,” Damon nodded as a wistful smile twitched onto his face. “I wish I had been here.”

“I think being dead gets you a pass,” Matt snorted amusedly. 

“He’s right about that,” Stefan chimed in. 

“Still…” Damon sighed before lifting his glass. “To Liz…I’m sure all the criminals in the afterlife are being crushed under her heel.” 

“To Liz,” the rest of the group chorused before taking a drink.

“Can I ask…what kind of deal did you have with her about the whole vampire in town thing?” Matt wondered. 

“No killing and keep any feeding humane and discrete,” Damon told him. 

Matt considered that for a long moment before nodding. “I hope you understand why I can’t allow that though. I mean, there are over a hundred vampires at that school. If they’re allowed to feed in town, there won’t be anything discrete about it,” he pointed out. 

“I get that,” Damon agreed. “And I never said anything about allowing them to feed in town. Hell, I’ll probably avoid feeding in town for the most part too, just to keep attention off the school.”

“Then why…you know what…never mind,” Matt shook his head. “If you can honor the deal you had with her, I’d be willing to look the other way occasionally, but if it gets out of hand…”

“I’ll make sure that it doesn’t,” Damon agreed. Keeping the deal would be a good way to honor his best friend anyway.

“Good enough,” Matt nodded. “Well I should head out. I just stopped by to grab some dinner on the way home. Welcome back Damon. It was nice to meet you Kai. Tell Bonnie and Elena I said hello.” He gave a friendly nod to Jeremy, Ric, and Stefan too before he walked away. 

Kai smirked and clapped Damon on the back. “How many times do I have to tell you…you get more flies with honey.” 

“Honey’s your thing. I prefer the vinegar,” Damon snorted amusedly. 

“Personally, I think the whole good cop, bad cop routine was the helpful part,” Jeremy joked. “If Damon hadn’t riled him up, he wouldn’t have listened to Kai.” 

Ric rolled his eyes. “I’m still trying to figure out how you two managed to good cop/bad cop the sheriff successfully.”

“It’s a gift,” Damon chuckled. “I have a way with people.”

“Well I think you’re a little rusty after sixteen years there brother,” Stefan teased. “If Kai wasn’t here we might have ended up with a dead sheriff.” 

“Hey I’ll have you know I haven’t killed anyone in over a decade and a half,” Damon protested. 

“Because there wasn’t anyone /to/ kill,” Stefan laughed. 

“Actually, you did kill me once,” Kai pointed out amusedly. 

“That was a mercy killing,” Damon said. “And we knew you would come back after. It doesn’t count.” 

“Mercy killing?” Jeremy asked curiously. 

“The last time I had to deal with black traveler magic. It was eating me alive for days and I was dying slowly and painfully,” Kai explained. 

“In the prison world though, if he died he would come back good as new, so he asked me to kill him and get it over with,” Damon shrugged. 

“The /last/ time?” Stefan asked which prompted the whole story of when they first arrived and the truth behind the soul fountain. “Oh god. I didn’t know,” Stefan all but begged them to believe him. 

“Did you know it was there in the first place?” Damon asked dangerously. 

“I knew that Ric had a failsafe device that would nullify the magic temporarily. I didn’t know what it was or that it came from the travelers. I never even saw it,” Stefan assured them. 

“I did, and I knew it was pretty dark, but I figured that if it wasn’t on it couldn’t do any damage and if Ric did turn it on it would be in a situation that would mean saving lives so I just let it go,” Jeremy shrugged regretfully. “I should have dug deeper.”

“We all should have,” Ric agreed. 

“In their defense…the book that had the information was hidden away in the traveler’s archives behind a particularly nasty curse, so…” Kai tried to defuse the situation. It had already been hashed out and resolved and thankfully Damon dropped it.


	19. Chapter 19

Thankfully, girl’s night the next night went a lot more smoothly, though Matt had been hanging around hoping to get a chance to see Elena and Bonnie and they had a tearful happy reunion and got a chance to hear more about some of their old classmates. He didn’t stay long though. That would have defeated the purpose of girl’s night after all. They didn’t end up leaving their wing until the day after that when they gave in and took a tour of the school. The kids had been good for the last couple days and were getting more comfortable with meeting new people, so it was time to get out of their isolation. 

That didn’t mean they just let the kids run around though. The kids were still too nervous for that anyway. Damon had one of his girls on each hip while Elena carried seven-year-old Damien. Kai and Bonnie each carried one of their girls while the twins walked between them, Gabe clinging to his father’s free arm and little Kai clinging to his mother while Artemis followed beside, not letting the kids out of her sight. When they left their wing the first place they ended up was the common room since it was right there. When they saw dozens of students lounging around, about half of them doing all sorts of magic, all the kid’s eyes got the size of saucers.

“Dewe’s so many peopwe,” Lynn breathed out as her thumb went back to her mouth. 

Damon moved his hand up from her leg to gently pull it out as he told her. “There are. You remember how we said this is a school?” 

The students turned to look at them and most of them waved and smiled before turning back to what they were doing. Some of them made funny faces at the kids when they caught their eyes making them giggle. Two of them approached though after getting the nod from their headmaster. The students had decided among themselves that in an effort not to ‘mob’ them as requested, the two vampire representatives of the students would be the only ones to approach them. They had already been greeted by witch representatives after all and the wolves didn’t care. 

“Hey, I’m MG and this is Kaleb,” he said as he walked up. 

“We’re the student representatives of the vampires, so we thought we would come welcome you. /All/ of you,” Kaleb added the last part with a look at Kai and Bonnie’s brood so they didn’t think he just meant the vampires. “To the Salvatore School.”

“I know you,” Steffie said looking at MG. “You hewped us get in.”

“I did,” MG grinned at her. “You have a great memory.”

“Probably because you’re the first person she’s ever seen outside the family,” Damon joked. 

Elena rolled her eyes and told MG. “Thank you for that. And for being so considerate of the kids.” 

“Of course. They’re adorable,” MG said happily, proud that they remembered him. 

“So, Kaleb is it?” Damon asked the other boy, wanting to include him into the conversation as well. “What is it that student vampire representatives do?” 

“Well I’m the official representative, which means that I was voted in by the rest of the vampires to represent the vampire interests on the Honor Council,” Kaleb explained. 

“And I’m the more unofficial welcoming committee,” MG added. 

“Can I ask, sir…” Kaleb started before Damon cut him off. 

“I’m not a sir. I’m Damon,” he said amusedly. 

“Right. Damon,” Kaleb chuckled. “Where do you stand on the issue of animal versus human blood?” He was pretty sure he knew already. Anyone who’d heard the stories about him could have figured it out, but he wanted it to be said in front of the headmaster and hopefully made enough of a difference to get him to listen if it was his old friend saying so. 

“While I would love to have that particular conversation with you, Kaleb, I’m afraid I promised Ric here not to. I’d be happy to hear where you stand though,” Damon told him. 

“He stands the same place you do on that, Damon,” Ric rolled his eyes, seeing right through Kaleb’s attempts as he looked at him. “And I’ll tell you the same thing I told Damon. Again. I’m taking it under advisement.” 

“Just try to remember that some of us /need/ animal blood,” MG pointed out with a wince. 

“You’re a ripper?” Elena guessed and MG nodded sadly. “I’m sorry to hear that.” 

“Yeah, my brother is a ripper so I know how hard it can be. And you have my word that no one is talking about getting rid of animal blood completely,” Damon assured him. 

“And before we get any deeper into this subject, we should probably continue the tour,” Ric interrupted. 

“It was great to meet you,” MG told them all. 

“Yeah. Hope to see you around,” Kaleb added as they went back to their groups who were anxiously awaiting word on what they were like. 

Ric led them on. “And this is the library.”

“You mean the Damon Salvatore Memorial Library?” Bonnie teased both Damon and Ric as some of the nearby students snickered before turning back to their books. 

“Dewe’s Uncle Damon!” Ser pointed out noticing the life sized portrait hanging over the fireplace. 

“Remind me to eviscerate my brother for digging out that monstrosity,” Damon muttered, getting another snicker from the nearby students who didn’t look up this time. 

“Right, moving on,” Ric said turning away from the portrait. “The library is organized into two sections. The normal section and the supernatural section. Most basic things are pretty easy to find, but for rare subjects or if you know a term but not what it is, this device here is enchanted to help you find it.” 

“How?” Kai asked curiously as he touched it to get a feel for the magic. 

“Please don’t siphon it,” Ric chuckled, pretty sure that he wasn’t, but needed to say it anyway. 

“I won’t. Just inspecting the magic,” Kai laughed. 

“Well I’m not really sure of the exact spellwork. I can get you in touch with the designers of it if you’re interested, but in the meantime, here’s how it works. Let’s say you’re looking for a book on…”

“Trolls!” Gabe interjected. He had been getting into the old Norwegian tales in his lessons lately and found them fascinating. 

“Okay, trolls,” Ric chuckled. “Why don’t you come up here and I’ll let you do it.” Gabe hesitated a moment before letting go of his father’s hand, but not his brother’s as he and little Kai walked over. “Turn these dials through the letters to make the word troll,” Ric prompted. Once it was done, he told them, “Now push that button.” When they did, five books flew off the shelves and stacked on the table. 

“Wow! Cool!” little Kai said with wide eyes. 

“How do you put them back if you didn’t see where they came from?” Elena asked curiously. 

“That leads us to the next enchanted part of our library system,” Ric told her, motioning the kids to grab the books and follow. “Just put the books in this slot here.” 

Gabe and little Kai shook their heads. “We got the books. The others can do this part,” Gabe said as they started handing a book to each of the other kids who took turns putting them in the slot and watching them fly out the back and towards the shelves as they giggled and clapped. 

“That is definitely some impressive spellwork,” Bonnie admitted. 

“I’m glad you’re impressed,” Ric told her. “Now if the kids end up going to school here, they’ll get a more in-depth tour of the library and how it’s organized when they reach the upper school. The lower school has a separate library.” Once they left the library their next stop was on the other side of the floor. “This is the medical wing…”

“The Elena Gilbert Memorial Medical Wing you mean?” Damon teased his wife, bumping her playfully and she smacked him with the hand that wasn’t holding a kid. 

“Yeah, that,” Ric shook his head at their antics. “The infirmary is right here when you enter so that it’s easier for the kids to get to if they need it. Across the hall are the medical records, which have privacy spells on them and the private exam rooms. Farther down are the classrooms where healing magic is taught. The rest of the classrooms are upstairs.” 

“What kind of classroom did you turn my room into?” Damon asked hesitantly, not sure he wanted to know. 

“Intro to Lycanthropy,” Ric joked. When Damon opened his mouth to protest he laughed. “I’m kidding. It’s the Intro to Magical History classroom.” Ric had figured it would be poor taste to host that particular class in the room where Damon almost died of a werewolf bite and a friend of his actually died from the same. Not when there were so many other available classrooms to use.


	20. Chapter 20

“So the whole main house is just classrooms and the public areas?” Kai asked. 

“Except for the administration wing,” Ric told him. “That’s where my office and personal rooms are.”

“So the wing we’re in…” Elena asked. 

“Is being transformed into dorms for any rare species. Currently we have our phoenix living with the werewolves, which has caused some problems.”

“What kind of problems?” Bonnie asked. 

“Do you know anything about phoenixes?” Ric asked, wondering if they’d come across anything in their travels. 

“A little bit of information we found in Greece, but it was mostly mentions. Supposedly they’re very rare,” Kai told him. 

“Well phoenixes, in many ways, are no different from humans. They don’t have the strength or endurance or even healing ability that werewolves and vampires do,” Ric explained. 

“So having him in a dorm full of superstrength rowdy werewolves would be a bad thing,” Damon nodded. 

“Why not just house him with the witches then?” Bonnie suggested. “That should be safe enough.”

“It would be safer, yes, but he already feels out of place here since he can’t do magic and doesn’t have any special abilities that we’ve found yet. He came here with his foster brother who is a werewolf, so for the time being we’re keeping them together. We want to have these dorms ready though since other rare species can crop up at any time and I have no intention of turning anyone away simply because they’re different.” 

“That makes sense,” Elena said with a smile. “One thing I do love about this school is the inclusivity.” Despite all the problems, the idea behind it was great. 

“We do try,” Ric told her gratefully. After being taken to task about all the problems it was nice to get a compliment. “So, as you know, my office is through there. These are my personal rooms if you ever want to stop by, and since we’re here, Jo and I were hoping you wouldn’t mind checking on Josie?” he asked Kai. 

“Of course,” Kai agreed and Ric let them all in and led Kai to Josie’s room. He watched as Kai went over to the bed and took her hand. He couldn’t see anything happening, but that didn’t surprise him. It took about ten minutes before Kai set her hand down and told him, “She’s fine. The void is gone and her magic is repairing. She should wake up by this afternoon, but she’ll need an influx of magic pretty soon after she wakes up.” 

“Do you mind if we bring her down to visit and cuddle with the kids then?” Ric asked. 

“Not at all,” Kai said with a smile. “They’re all little cuddlebugs and would love every minute of it.” 

“Thank you, Kai. I don’t know what we would have done for them without you,” Ric said gratefully. 

“Anytime,” Kai told him as they headed out of the room. “Really. I’m always glad to help. Especially family.” 

“And we very much appreciate it,” Jo said with a smile as she came out of the other room and hugged her brother who sank into the embrace. “I took the liberty of having lunch sent up so we could eat here before you continue the tour.”

“Thanks Jo,” Elena told her plopping onto Damon’s lap as the kids explored the room and Artemis laid on Damon’s feet. Stefan, Caroline, and Jeremy were spending the day in town rather than joining in on the tour so they didn’t end up with too big of a group. The seven kids and four adults, five if they counted Ric, was more than enough. 

After lunch they were led outside to the Bonnie Bennett memorial gardens and Kai got in on the teasing of his wife, but the gardens were beyond beautiful. “Out here is where we teach horticulture magic…or plant magic as the little ones call it,” Ric chuckled. “And this is our little plant prodigy, Pedro,” he noticed the boy sitting on the edge of the flowerbed. “How are you, Pedro?” 

“I’m good,” Pedro said. “Miss Emma said I could sit with the plants for a while.” 

“That’s okay,” Ric told him. “How would you like to meet some new friends?” 

The kids were comfortable enough now that they were walking on their own since lunch, but they all still had ahold of an adult hand, but that meant that when Pedro came over, they were on the same level. All the kids introduced themselves and Pedro looked excitedly at Artemis. “That’s a big kitty,” he said. “Can I pet her?” 

“Sure, Damien was the first to speak up. “She likes to be petted. Her name’s Artemis.” 

“Hi Artemis,” Pedro said cheerfully as he ran his hand over the top of her head and she leaned into his touch. The kids let go of their parents for the first time as Pedro led them around the garden pointing out his favorite flowers while the adults followed, smiling at their kids’ first friend. 

Pedro followed them to the next building in the line. “This is where the lower school is housed. We don’t normally accept students under five unless they’re orphaned, but of course we would make an exception for Lynn if you decide to send them to school here,” Ric explained as they went in and there were dozens of kids playing in the main room. 

“Do you have any kids under five right now?” Bonnie asked curiously. 

“Not at the moment, no. Pedro has been here since he was three, and we have a few others that were here younger, but none currently under five,” Ric told them. “This first floor has all the play rooms, the children’s library, and their dining hall,” he said as he led them through. “You’re welcome to let the kids play down here with the others while I show you upstairs.”

“I don’t know…” Damon said hesitantly looking over at the kids who seemed to be playing happily, but still kept looking over every few seconds at their parents. 

“I’ll stay down here with them,” Kai offered. He could just get the info from the others later on what it was like. The kids would probably freak out if they all left and none of them really had the heart to pull them away from their play the first time they’d ever been around other kids so they easily agreed. 

Damon, Elena, and Bonnie followed Ric up the stairs and got a quick look at the classrooms on the second floor before they got to the third floor and the dorms. “Since the kids are younger, there are more to a room,” Ric explained as they looked in the first room that contained five bunk beds. “Most of the faculty lives in this building as well. About two thirds on this floor which is where the kids six and under sleep and the rest on the next floor where the seven to ten year olds live. The stairs have a barrier spell so that no one under eleven can get in or out at night without an adult. It takes effect at curfew and deactivates at seven am.”

“That’s handy,” Bonnie told him. “We had something similar at home.” Little kids and stairs with no supervision was never a good thing. 

“There are also alarm spells on the doors for the same time period so anytime the door is opened, one of the teachers is notified and the notification rotates so that no one has to get up every night and they take turns. Since the bathrooms are connected to the dorm rooms through here, there is no need for any of them to leave the room at night unless they need something.” 

“Is that common?” Elena asked. 

“I don’t know that I’d say common exactly,” Ric shrugged. “But there are cases of homesickness, nightmares, sometimes someone will fall out of bed and end up with some bumps or bruises and want some comfort, stuff like that. Unfortunately, a lot of these kids come from difficult homes or situations so nightmares are the most common. Especially when they first get here, though we are getting better at finding them sooner.”

“Sooner?” Damon asked curiously. 

“As an example, we had a little girl a few years ago who had a magical outburst and ended up blowing up her house and killing her parents. If we had found her sooner that could have been avoided.” 

“So there are a lot of orphans here?” Bonnie asked. 

“Probably about half our current students are either orphans or aren’t welcome back at home for being what they are. Most of them have friends that they spend the holidays with, but there are a few that stay here year-round,” Ric said sadly. 

“Well we would be happy to help any of them who need a place to stay, whether we send the kids here or not,” Elena chimed in. 

“Thank you, Elena,” Ric said with a smile. “We’ll probably take you up on that,” he told them as they headed back downstairs to find Kai talking with Emma as they watched the kids play. “The only other part of this building is the fenced in playground out back, he pointed out the window and they all took a look, seeing a few dozen more kids out there with a few adults watching them. 

Kai came over and suggested, “We should give the kids the option of staying here or coming with us for the rest of the tour. They’re getting more comfortable.” 

“And we will keep a close eye on them and I’ll come get you if anything happens,” Emma assured them. 

Damon, Elena, and Bonnie looked at each other and shrugged. “Okay, we’ll give them the choice.” When they all decided to stay and play some more, the parents followed Ric back outside.


	21. Chapter 21

“The other three buildings over here are the upper-class dorms. The vampires are over there on the other side of the lower school, the witches are on the other side of the main building and the werewolves on the end by the forest,” Ric explained. 

“How many faculty members live in those dorms?” Bonnie asked. 

“None,” Ric told her. “There are monitoring spells for a number of things, but the vampire dorm is vampires only for safety’s sake as are the other dorms. Friends come and go during the day of course, but no one else stays there. The few witches on staff are needed to help with the lower class.” 

“What are the student breakdowns like?” Damon asked curiously. 

“The lower class has about a hundred students give or take. Currently there are a hundred and six. We try not to go over a hundred, but it’s so hard to turn anyone away. They are all witches currently since I’ve never known a vampire to turn someone so young and we’ve never encountered a werewolf that young either.” 

“And how would the safety factor in if our kids went here? Vampire kids being housed with witch kids,” Damon asked, understanding the need for each species to have their own space. 

“That would be something to figure out,” Ric told them. “I’m sure we could find a solution that everyone can live with. And that’s assuming there would be a safety issue at all. They seem much more controlled than most of the vampires we have here, probably because they were born that way so there isn’t the difficult adjustment.” 

“Yeah, we could discuss that if needed,” Elena agreed. “What about the upper students? How do they break down?” 

“Currently there are a hundred and twelve vampires, two hundred and eighteen witches, and ninety eight werewolves, plus our phoenix,” Ric told them. 

“Why so many more witches?” Kai asked curiously. 

“Just because there are more young witches and they’re easier to find,” Ric assured them, not wanting them to think that it was a prejudice issue. “Most vampires are too old for school when they turn and the same for werewolves. We don’t admit anyone over seventeen.” 

“I can see that,” Damon nodded. “Of the vampires I’ve known there have only been a few that were turned before they were eighteen. Elena, Caroline, Stefan, Anna…not sure about Katherine. She never said how old she was when she was turned. The rest I’ve known have been closer to my age or older.” 

“I’m guessing a lot of the ‘not welcome home’ students are vampires?” Bonnie asked. 

“There are more of them than others, but some of their families are very accepting. Kaleb who you met earlier has a wonderful family. MG not so much. He’s one of those that stay year-round. There are some in every group though.” 

“How do you manage to fund this place?” Damon asked. “I would imagine that a lot of the students can’t afford to pay tuition in their position.”

“Mostly through donations from the wealthier families,” Ric explained. “A good portion of the Salvatore fortune has been pushed through the school. Jeremy donated half the Gilbert fortune in your name Elena, and there have been quite a few others.” He didn’t want to get into the whole Mikaelson drama right now, so he left them out for the moment. “And a lot of the families who don’t want their kids home still pay the tuition in an effort to do right by them. Those are the ones that are just scared, but still love their kids even if they can’t stand to be around them.”

“That’s no excuse,” Elena said angrily. 

“No, it’s not,” Ric told her. “And I do what I can to smooth things over, but sometimes you just can’t reason through the fear.”

“At least now we know why you have so many staffing issues,” Kai said understandingly. 

“Yeah, including room and board helps, and the fact that magic can be used for cooking and cleaning, but there’s still not a lot of budget available, and given how easy it is for vampires to go out and compel themselves a fortune or witches to use magic to get rich and how many werewolves prefer to live in the wild, there isn’t much I can offer to get them here. Then there’s the fact that most humans who know about the supernatural fear it, even the ones who accept it, and I won’t take anyone on here that looks down on these kids, even a little bit.” 

“That’s another thing you’re definitely doing right,” Damon assured him. 

“Those other donations you mentioned…how many of them come from rich vampires and witches?” Bonnie asked curiously. 

“Almost all of them,” Ric chuckled. “Some that have children here and some that just like the idea of this place.” 

“So it’s more of an availability issue than a budget issue?” Elena asked. 

“Mostly yes. I mean, I might be able to get some here if I paid exorbitant amounts, but that opens up a whole new can of worms.”

“Yeah, you definitely don’t want to start that habit,” Kai snorted. “Then everyone will expect the same amount and you’re back in the same staffing issue, but broke.” 

“Exactly my thinking,” Ric agreed. 

“Out of curiosity…Stefan and Caroline won’t work here either?” Elena asked. 

“Stefan doesn’t trust himself around the kids and of course Caroline stays with him, and enjoys traveling too much to want to settle down, so no,” Ric explained. 

“Typical martyr Stefan,” Damon rolled his eyes. 

“We’re not gonna check out the other dorms?” Bonnie asked as she realized they’d just been walking around the grounds.

“Did you want to?” Ric asked. “There’s not really anything special about them. The ground floor is just one big common area and the dorm rooms are the same as where you’ve been staying.” 

“No, I guess it’s not important then,” Kai said as they all shrugged. 

Their long circuit around the grounds led them back to the lower school where they went inside to get the kids before heading back for their rooms just in time as Jo was heading down with Josie and Lizzie tagging along too. Both girls got plenty of cuddles from the tired kids as they chattered about their day and all the new friends they’d met. 

Elena grabbed the wedding drives that she’d copied onto a new one along with combining all the other personal drives. With how far technology advanced they would only need two total drives. One personal and one for all the knowledge they’d accumulated. She handed the two wedding drives to Josie who put them in her pocket so she could work on them when she had a chance. Since today was the last day before spring break, she would have plenty of time, even with catching up on the work she missed. 

Since the kids had a lot for their first day out in the world, they decided to have dinner in their wing, but this time Damon and Kai went with the group to bring back the food. They would give eating with the students a try for breakfast. After dinner, Damon wanted to hit the library to find something to read and conned Stefan into going with him since he knew his way around better. That and Stefan knew his taste in books so he could recommend something new. 

Once they stepped into the library though, Stefan tried to turn around and leave. “What’s wrong?” Damon asked confused before he caught his brother’s name in a conversation and tuned in.

“…is Stefan Salvatore going to be here?” a man asked Ric. 

“I don’t know. Probably at least a few more days. If I didn’t need you here so much right now I’d offer you some vacation time, but…”

“No it’s fine,” the man told him. “I’ll deal with it.” 

“What’s his deal?” Damon bristled, ready for a confrontation. 

“Damon, don’t,” Stefan warned him. 

“Why not?” 

“Because he has every right to hate me and not want to be near me.”

“Okay…” Damon said waiting for the story. 

Stefan sighed heavily and pulled him to the corner. “After you guys died, I was a mess. I fell off the deep end, turned of my humanity, the whole deal. Caroline tracked me down while I was in the middle of slaughtering a family. I had already killed the parents and the older daughter, but she saved the younger son from me.”

“He was the son?” Damon asked, and Stefan nodded. “And he works in a school with vampires?”

“Yes, I do,” Dorian said coming up behind them. “Because I get the whole ripper thing and I know that it wasn’t entirely Stefan’s fault. And every one of these kids that we can help is one less that is likely to go out there and do the same.” He looked at Stefan. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were here. You weren’t supposed to overhear that.”

“It’s fine. I get it,” Stefan assured him. 

“I know. I just want to say that it’s gonna take me some time to get used to having you around, but I don’t want you to feel unwelcome. Especially with your brother back. I do appreciate what you did for me after all that.” He turned back to Damon. “I’m Dorian Williams. Librarian, substitute teacher, administrative assistant, and so on.” 

“So basically, Ric’s right hand,” Damon chuckled taking the offered hand, not entirely sure about this guy yet, but willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. If he could give Stefan that after Stefan slaughtered his family then he had earned that much. 

“Pretty much,” Dorian chuckled. “I was just getting ready to shut the library down for the night, but if you need something first…”

“I was just looking for something to read,” Damon told him. 

“Anything in particular?” Dorian asked as Stefan slipped out of the room, finding it as uncomfortable to be around Dorian as Dorian was around him. 

“Literary, not reference, that’s come out in the last sixteen years,” Damon told him. 

“Follow me,” Dorian said leading him down one of the aisles. “Why don’t you give this one a try. It’s one of my favorites. It’s a little philosophical, but has enough adventure and drama to keep you interested.”

“Sounds like my kind of book. Thanks. I’ll let you get to closing up,” Damon told him as he headed out to catch up to his brother.


	22. Chapter 22

The next morning, breakfast was sparsely attended as Ric led them over to the faculty table, assuming they would rather not sit with the students. The kids did go sit with their new friends at the table for the lower classes which was currently the largest group in the room. “Where is everyone?” Elena asked. 

“It’s the last day before spring break and a half day. A lot of the students decide to skip it, which is frowned upon but not really worth the fight,” Ric told them. “Most of them will be going home this afternoon, and I’d suggest staying in your wing for a few hours after lunch to avoid the chaos.” 

“We’ll definitely do that,” Bonnie laughed. 

“Do many students stay for spring break?” Kai asked curiously. 

“Not a lot, but more than stay for the summer break,” Ric told them. “There will probably be about fifty students staying, including the eighteen from the lower class that have nowhere else to go.” 

With breakfast being sparsely populated, it went pretty well and when the kids wanted to go play with their friends, the parents looked to Emma, who was with them as the head of the lower school. “We would be happy to have them until lunch. We’re mostly doing arts and crafts today with the short day.”

“Then you can go play,” Damon agreed when the rest of the parents nodded. “We’ll meet you back here at lunch.” 

After breakfast, Ric and Jo headed back to their offices while Damon, Elena, Bonnie, and Kai decided to spend the morning walking around the school and exploring. They ran across a lot of students over the course of the day, only about half of them looking like they were actually planning to attend class. After lunch, they secluded themselves in their rooms, setting the kids up with their lessons as more stories from the last sixteen years were exchanged with Caroline, Stefan, and Jeremy. 

The next morning, Damon was browsing the library, managing to ignore the students intermittently staring at him, when Ric came up. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you. Would you come to my office for a chat? Elena, Kai, and Bonnie are coming too and Stefan, Caroline, and Jeremy are sitting with the kids.” 

“Yeah sure,” Damon shrugged, putting the book he was looking at back as he followed Ric out. Once they were in the office, he sat next to Elena on one couch while Kai and Bonnie sat on the other. Ric sat behind his desk and Jo sat on the edge of the desk. “What is this about?” he asked curiously. 

“As promised, we’ve considered your concerns with the school and discussed them at length,” Ric told them. “Starting with the witches, since that’s the easier problem, I do see your points, but I also don’t think that the younger students have the maturity to learn offensive magic, nor will they need it anytime soon, so we can add an offensive magic class for the juniors and seniors. And I can’t think of anyone better to teach it than a Bennett witch.” 

“Wait…you want me to teach here?” Bonnie asked incredulously. 

“Absolutely. And since teaching here means living here, and your husband would obviously be living with you…Kai, would you be willing to teach a class on uncommon magics? Including as much as you’re comfortable sharing on siphoners.” 

“I wouldn’t mind it, but I think it’s something we would need to discuss before I give a firm yes,” Kai told him, getting a nod from Bonnie. 

“That’s fine. If you can let me know by the end of the week, we can get that started for the upcoming semester.” 

“We can let you know by then, yes,” Bonnie agreed. 

“Good. So on to the vampire issue,” he turned to Damon. “While I do see your points, it’s not so easy to make those kinds of changes. For one thing, how would we even get enough blood for over a hundred vampires?”

“That’s easy. Just register as a private hospital. A few compulsions and there you go. You’re getting regular deliveries of all the blood you need,” Damon pointed out. 

“I’m assuming you would be willing to do those compulsions?” he asked and Damon and Elena both nodded. “But there’s still the issue of rippers. We already know of one. What if there are more than we don’t know of?” 

“Rippers are rare,” Elena told him. “I doubt there are any more, but why not just lock them up somewhere for the first few days and watch for the signs?” 

“We can’t just throw kids in cells for no reason,” Jo pointed out. 

“What if they volunteer?” Damon asked. “Make the human blood optional, but if they want it then they have to submit to the test to make sure they aren’t rippers.” 

“What kind of signs would we have to watch out for?” Ric asked considering the idea. 

“Extreme mood swings is a big one. Being jittery, especially as it gets closer to time to feed, craving more than they need if they’ll admit to that, drinking it exceptionally fast…that kind of thing,” Damon explained. 

“Basically, anything you’d look for in a drug addict,” Elena added. 

Ric nodded thoughtfully and took a moment before he spoke again. “Okay. We can definitely see about getting that taken care of. Would a weekend be enough time to spot the signs or would they need to miss class?”

“It might be enough, but I’d go with at least four days to be sure. Just in case they manage to cover up the symptoms at first, they wouldn’t be able to keep up the act for that long,” Damon said. 

“Okay that could work. But there’s still the big issue. Teaching them to feed safely from living people. It’s not like we can just let them loose in town to practice,” Ric pointed out. 

“It’s not like they would need to go often. Just once or twice each to make sure they have the hang of it. Other than that it can be all theory. Just take them out in small groups. Kind of a field trip to a nearby city. You could even do it on Saturdays or something throughout the semester so everyone gets a turn,” Elena suggested. “It only took me one night to have it down, despite how resistant I was to the idea.” 

Ric looked at Jo who nodded so he turned back to Damon. “Okay then. You win. On one condition.”

“What condition?” Damon asked with narrowed eyes. 

“I can’t think of anyone better to teach a class on how to feed safely and blend in with humans than you,” Ric smirked. 

“You’re not serious,” Damon asked incredulously. “You want /me/ to be a teacher?” Elena, Bonnie, and Kai all burst into laughter, mostly because of the look on his face. “See? Even they think the idea is absurd.”

“No, actually,” Elena managed to get out. “I think it’s a great idea. The look on your face though…”

“Yeah, you teach our kids pretty well, despite your lack of patience,” Bonnie pointed out. 

“I have to agree with them. If anyone knows how to play the game and can teach these kids how to do it, it’s you,” Kai told him. 

“You’re blackmailing me,” Damon accused Ric. “If I don’t take the job every vampire kid in this school suffers for it.” 

“It’s not blackmail, Damon, though I can see how it would look that way,” Ric admitted. “But think about it. Who else but a vampire could teach that kind of class? You think a witch or a human could handle that subject with any kind of expertise?”

“Elena…”

“Was only a vampire for a year and a half before we ended up in the prison world and has very little practice,” Elena laughed, cutting off what she knew he was about to suggest. “And Caroline hates the snatch, eat, erase and only drinks from blood bags.”

Damon sighed heavily knowing he’d lost the battle. The only other vampire they had on hand was Stefan and as a ripper he didn’t even rate consideration. “Fine. I’ll think about it and let you know at the end of the week.” 

“Are you about to offer me a job next?” Elena joked. 

“Sort of,” Ric told her. “You were all right about the staffing issues. Particularly the lack of supernaturals. If Damon takes the job, you’d be here anyway since he’d be living on campus, so we would be happy to have you in whatever position you like.” 

“I’ll start thinking about what I might want to do,” Elena promised. 

“Now the big question,” Jo said amusedly. “Would these changes be enough for you to consider sending your kids here?” 

“To consider, yes. For my part at least,” Bonnie said. “If we take the jobs absolutely and that’s something that’s going to factor into the decision. We’re not going to work here and send our kids to school elsewhere.” 

“What she said,” Damon agreed.


	23. Chapter 23

Over the next few days, a lot of discussions were had. Damon and Elena discussed it with each other. Kai and Bonnie did the same. The four talked about it together. Even Stefan, Caroline, Jeremy, and the kids got a chance to weigh in. Among the issues was Stefan’s discomfort with being in the school, but he agreed that if they chose to do it, he and Caroline could get a home in town so they could still be close and hang out. Jeremy loved the idea because otherwise they would probably go out traveling the world with Stefan and Caroline or something and this way his sister and her family would be close by. Caroline was perfectly willing to settle down, at least for the most part. They could still travel, after all. They would just have a new ‘home base’ so to speak and being near her best friends was worth giving up the glitz and glam of LA life. 

The deciding factor though was the kids. They loved it here and wanted to stay. They had lived in another version of this house their whole lives. It was home. And now they had friends which they’d never had before and would be heartbroken to leave. They didn’t need the full week to decide so it was only a few days later that they found themselves back in Ric’s office. “So we’ve come to some decisions,” Bonnie started the conversation, having the biggest conditions attached to it. 

“Okay,” Ric said interestedly, guessing that if one of them was going to accept then they all would. 

“I would suggest making the offensive magic for the upper three years instead of two. There’s just too much to fit into two years, especially with my most important condition. I want to teach the seniors a class on dark magic.”

Ric narrowed his eyes. “I’m going to need a /very/ good reason if you want me to allow dark magic to be taught in this school.”

“The biggest problem I had with the dark is the fact that I knew nothing about it. It made me an easy target. I don’t intend to let that happen to any of these kids. I plan to teach them the different types of dark magic, how to recognize them, what makes a spell dark, the theory behind it, and so on.”

“But they wouldn’t be casting dark magic?” Ric asked. 

“Yeah. They would. Minor dark spells, but they need to know what it feels like,” Bonnie explained. “When they get out in the world they are going to be faced with it on a regular basis and they need to know how to use it safely if they so choose. They need to know the danger signs of getting lost in it, how to cleanse themselves of it, how to protect themselves from it.” 

Ric considered that for a moment before conceding her point. In theory at least. “What kind of dark spells would we be talking about teaching them?”

“Nothing harmful. No curses or death or mutilation spells or anything. Blood tracking spells, blood linking spells, the cleansing spell if you use too much dark magic is also a dark spell, but it can only be cast on others. There are a few healing spells that are dark that we might touch on. Those sorts of things,” Bonnie told him. 

“Help me understand how the whole using too much and cleansing thing works,” Ric asked her as Jo walked in, and Ric motioned her to stay. 

Bonnie looked to Kai for that. He was better at explaining those sorts of concepts due to his unique understanding of magic. “See, the magic within us is pure. Some might call it light magic, but that’s a misnomer. There’s no such thing. It’s untainted magic and using dark magic adds a taint to it, but our magic is constantly purifying itself. If we use too much dark magic though, it overwhelms the pure magic which can’t keep up. That’s when people fall to the darkness.”

“That’s what you meant by using it safely and in moderation,” Ric realized. 

“Exactly,” Bonnie told him. “There is a lot of dark magic out there. Every one of these kids is going to run across it at some point or another. They need to know how it feels and how to keep it from taking control of them.”

“You’re not planning to push them to the brink of losing control are you?” Jo asked worriedly.

“No, absolutely not. We’ll be using just enough for it to sit in their systems for an hour or two and even then only when we’re practicing the cleansing spells so there’s something there to cleanse,” Bonnie told him. “The danger signs of using too much will be talked about in theory only. They just have to know what the dark magic feels like to begin with to understand them.” 

“Kai, can I talk to you in private for a few minutes before we continue this discussion?” Jo asked. 

“Sure,” Kai shrugged and followed her into the other room. “What’s up?”

“Has Josie been using dark magic? Is that what happened to her?” Jo asked him bluntly. 

Kai sighed and sat down as he shook his head. “Please understand, Jo. If I go blabbing to you what they tell me in confidence, then they stop confiding in me. Then they try to handle things themselves and don’t get the help they need.” 

Jo deflated as she sat down next to him and considered his point. “Okay. I get that. And I promise I won’t ask you again, but this time I need to know. I won’t let either of them know that you told me or that I know at all. I won’t bring the subject up or punish them for anything.”

Kai hesitated a moment before deciding that, just this once, he would spill. And if it blew up in his face, he would do whatever was necessary to make it up to Josie so that she would continue to confide in him if she needed help. “Yes. She was using dark magic. But not a lot and in moderation. Her magic could have easily cleansed it if it were working right, but because her void was already forming that dark magic was fueling it and not allowing it to be cleansed. She didn’t understand what she was feeling, but she knew that she was craving dark magic which is the first warning sign of being overcome by it.” 

“But it’s gone now?” Jo asked hopefully. 

“It is,” Kai told her. “And so is the void, so as long as she doesn’t starve herself of magic again, she will be able to cleanse it like anyone else…and now that she knows what it feels like, she knows to reach out for help if it does happen again.” 

“Okay,” Jo nodded. “Thank you for telling me. And thank you for being there for my girls.” 

“You’re always welcome,” Kai said with a smile as they got up to head back to the office. 

Once they were back with the others, Jo told Ric, “Bonnie’s right. They need to know and understand.” If they were getting their hands on dark magic anyway, even in the school, it was more important than ever. 

Ric sighed and nodded. “Okay. But I want details of every dark spell you’re going to have them cast and I get veto power over them. And while I can see making the class mandatory, the casting of the spells will be voluntary.” 

“I can live with that,” Bonnie agreed. 

“So you’re taking the job?” Ric asked. “Offensive magic for the sophomores and juniors and dark magic for the seniors?”

“Assuming we can work out the rest of the minor issues, yes,” Bonnie told him. 

“Okay. What minor issues?” Ric asked. 

“Kai and I want to live in the witch dorms,” she told him. “We don’t like the idea of all those kids not having any adult supervision. And we want our younger two to stay with us, not in the lower school dorms. Once they reach the upper school they can stay in the dorms, but until then, we want them close.” 

“Your twins are ten right?” Jo asked. 

“They’ll be eleven in two weeks,” Bonnie told her. “And I’m sure they’ll be able to keep up with the upper school. We keep them on advanced studies.” 

“We’ll test them for entry into the upper school to make sure,” Ric told her. “As far as them staying with you until then, that’s fine. As is you living in the witch dorms if that’s what you want.”

“And Elena and I want to live in the vampire dorms for the same reason, with the same arrangements for the kids,” Damon chimed in.

“We can do that,” Ric agreed. It would solve the problem of the vampires with the lower school witches too. “We can have apartments added onto those dorms within a few days. Too bad you guys don’t know any werewolves,” he chuckled. He would prefer for them to have supervision too.

“We’d love to help you out, but unfortunately we can’t,” Damon chuckled. 

“Does that mean that you’re all taking the jobs?” Ric asked hopefully. 

“Yes. We are,” Kai told him. “I do want some more details about what exactly you’re looking for with the uncommon magics class and what grades I would be teaching and such. And I will insist on talking to Lizzie and Josie about what /they’re/ comfortable with me sharing about siphoners.” 

“I’m thinking you can teach the upper four years. By then they’ve got all their introduction classes. Yours would be mandatory for the first year where they learn the most important things which we can figure out, but siphoners would definitely be included. Along with whatever you have on phoenixes since we have one here. They need to know how to interact with their classmates. After that it could be an elective. As far as what else to cover, I’ll leave that up to you, but I’ll want to see and approve a lesson plan in advance.” 

“Okay, that sounds good to me,” Kai nodded. He did love the esoteric knowledge and would have fun passing it on. 

“Damon, anything you want to know or add before we get into what Elena wants to do?” Ric asked. 

“No, I think my job is pretty self-explanatory. Except that I’ll want to take Elena with me for the trips into the city to help me watch them.” 

“I was going to suggest that myself,” Ric told him before turning to Elena. “So did you think of something you want to do?” 

“Yeah actually. You know how I always wanted to be a writer?” she asked him and got a nod in return as he wondered where she was going with this. “That’s what I want to do, but instead of writing novels, I want to take all that knowledge we’ve been accumulating and put it all together. I want to tell those stories. Those histories. Add them to the library here.”

“I think that’s an amazing idea,” Jo told her.

“Of course, I would be available to substitute or anything where needed, and I would also be working on archiving our resources. I don’t plan to put actual spellbooks together. I’d be more comfortable leaving that to witches who know that stuff better than I do, but I’d be willing to help them find what they needed for it of course.” 

“Okay. We’ll put you on the payroll as an archivist then,” Ric told her. “I’m not going to ask for or expect any of you to have full syllabi by the time classes start back next week, but if you could have at least the first few weeks outlined for me that would be great. Jo and I will work on modifying the schedules to account for the new classes and get them to you as soon as we can and we’ll let you know when your apartments are ready.” 

“I’ve already started the paperwork to have us registered as a private hospital so I’ll get it sent in and let you know when we need the compulsions,” Jo added. “And Josie and Lizzie wanted to show you the finished wedding videos anyway, so I’ll send them down this afternoon if that’s okay and you can talk to them then about the siphon witches information.” They all agreed and since everything was settled, they all went to get their jobs done.


	24. Chapter 24

Not long after they got to their rooms, there was a knock at the door and Bonnie let Josie and Lizzie in. “We put it on a drive for now so we can show you before we finalize it all on a dvd to make sure you like it,” Josie said, to nervous about their creations to make small talk. 

Elena waved her to the computer in invitation while Bonnie did the spell to project it on the wall. “Wow,” Lizzie gasped. “Will you teach me that spell?” 

“Sure,” Bonnie grinned. “While it was hard to figure out, it’s not that hard to do.” 

“Okay, I’m ready,” Josie interrupted. 

“Do the cover first,” Lizzie told her. It was shorter after all, so it was only fair. Josie nodded and pulled up the front cover for Damon and Elena’s wedding. It had four different pictures from the wedding, but not arranged in a grid. They were placed haphazardly over the page in a way that ended up looking beautiful. The background was cut out of the pictures too, so it was just Damon and Elena, though the empty cathedral was in the background of the whole thing. The first picture showed the moment that Damon and Elena reached for each other’s hands and was taken just as their hands met. The second was them holding each other’s hands between them and looking into each other’s eyes. That one was taken from below looking up, so was obviously one that Bonnie had taken. The third was of their kiss and the last showed Damon carrying Elena back down the aisle. Interspersed in the page were smaller accent images such as wedding bells, champaigne glasses, and even a drawn heart with Damon+Elena written in elegant cursive inside. 

“Wow, that’s beautiful,” Elena said in awe, getting nods from the other three adults. 

“Where did you get the image of the empty cathedral?” Damon had to ask. 

“From the first few seconds of the videos,” Lizzie told them. “I just had to cut you and Uncle Kai out, but since you were at the back it was pretty easy. There’s a back cover too, but it’s a lot more simple,” she said as she motioned to Josie who pulled it up and it was just a single picture, with a few special effects including a fade around the edges. It was an overhead shot of Elena entering the cathedral with Bonnie and Kai and Damon waiting up front for her. 

“Simple but elegant,” Bonnie nodded. “It’s perfect.” 

“Video now?” Josie asked, her nerves skyrocketing as they gushed over the cover. 

“Please,” Damon said with a grin, so Josie clicked to start the video. The first part started with the bridal march as it had played at the time and showed a closeup of Bonnie and Elena walking in the doors before fading to a close-up of Damon and Kai, focusing on Damon’s face as he saw her. Then it switched to the overhead view for the rest of her walk up the aisle. In perfect timing as Kai turned off the bridal march, the pipe organs started up in the background still allowing every word to be heard as the camera angles changed seamlessly at the perfect moments and when Damon picked Elena up to carry her out, one of the cameras caught half of it from the front and as they walked by that camera it switched to another angle of them from the back until they walked out the doors and the organ music faded out. 

“That was…incredible,” Elena breathed out. “More than we could have asked for,” Elena told them. 

“It really was great,” Damon assured them. “Would you be willing to make a few copies? Like five or so?” 

“Yeah, absolutely,” Josie beamed at them. “And I’ll keep the files in case you ever want more copies.” 

“Okay, ours now,” Bonnie said excitedly, channeling Caroline in that moment. She couldn’t wait to see what they did with theirs. 

Josie pulled up the cover first, which was both similar and very different. The pictures themselves were similar, but the layout and background fit better with the beach cave theme and instead of the wedding bells and champaigne glasses, there were seashells and rocks arranged in hearts and an image of a heart drawn in the sand with Kai+Bonnie scribbled in it. The main background was an image of the cave taken the same way as the cathedral from Damon and Elena’s wedding. The back cover had a background of the ocean with a picture of Kai and Bonnie walking out of the cave after he had put her down to walk. It got just as many compliments as the first. 

Then they moved onto the video, which didn’t have a true overhead view since the ceiling of the cave was much lower, but there was a camera at the mouth of the hole showing a slight overhead and giving a view of the entire cave which was used for the walk in after the closeups. Once the bridal march ended cheerful harp and flute music took its place in the background, to better fit the theme of the wedding. Josie had even put in a little humor this time and inserted a record scratch sound and stopped the music at Damon’s mistake with the rings, and again when Kai almost dropped Bonnie on the walk out and they had to readjust, with the music picking up where it left off once they were set again. “I have a version with out the starts and stops if you’d rather, but I thought this one was kinda cute so…” Josie explained a little sheepishly. 

“No, it’s perfect like this,” Kai chuckled. 

“I agree. I love the little bit of fun in there,” Bonnie grinned. 

“There is still one thing missing from both videos though,” Damon told them. 

“What’s that?” Josie asked, feeling a bit of worry crop up. 

“Credits,” Damon told them. “Your names as the creators of the videos. Make sure you add that at the end.” Everyone else quickly agreed. 

“Okay,” Josie blushed. “I can do that. You want five copies of each?” 

“Yes please,” Elena told her.

“Which leaves one last piece of business,” Damon smirked as he pulled out his wallet. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Lizzie protested. 

“You girls did an amazing job and went above and beyond,” Elena said gently as Damon handed them each a few bills. “You earned it.”

“Uncle Damon, this is five hundred dollars?!” Lizzie said in shock as she looked at Josie who had the same amount. 

“Yes. It is,” Damon’s smirk widened. “I looked into it and that is the going rate for professionally done videos and these are better than any professional ones I’ve seen.” 

“He’s right. You’ve more than earned it,” Kai assured them as Bonnie nodded her agreement. 

“Thank you,” Josie said in awe. “We are hoping to do something like that professionally.” 

“Well you can count on us for a good review,” Bonnie assured her. 

“And anything we can do to help you get your start,” Kai added. 

“After you graduate of course,” Elena said firmly and they both nodded profusely. “Now, I have to ask…how did you get the pictures and video so clear?”

“Digital enhancement,” Lizzie explained. “It’s a little time consuming so we only did it for the final product for now, but we’re working on enhancing the rest of it too.”

“Would you teach me how to do it?” Elena asked hopefully. It would really come in handy for their archives and make things easier to read. 

“Of course,” Lizzie said with a grin. “I’ll get you a disk with the software and help you load it onto your computer and teach you how to use it.” Elena thanked her profusely and conversation soon turned to other things. 

“Did your parents give you the news about us?” Bonnie broached the subject. 

“They didn’t say anything. What news?” Josie asked confused. 

“You’re going to have some new teachers once school gets back next week,” Kai grinned. 

“Wait…you? Both of you?” Lizzie asked excitedly. 

“And Damon, but he’ll only be teaching vampires,” Bonnie chuckled. 

“What will you be teaching?” Josie asked with wide-eyes. 

“I’ll be teaching uncommon magics,” Kai told her. “Including information on siphoners, which is why I wanted to talk to you two and make sure you’re comfortable with anything I include.”

“I don’t want people to know about the whole split personality dark side thing that could happen to me,” Josie said quickly. “I don’t want people looking at me like I’m a ticking time bomb.” 

“Well people already look at me that way,” Lizzie shrugged. “I’ve been treated like I’m crazy most of my life because of my outbursts, so if you can get them to understand I’m good with that.” 

“Then I will make sure they understand, and say nothing about internal siphoners,” Kai promised. 

“What will you be teaching, Aunt Bonnie?” Josie asked. 

“I’ll be teaching offensive magic, and a course on the basics of dark magic for the seniors,” Bonnie told them.

“Dad’s letting us learn offensive magic?!” Josie grinned happily. “We’ve been trying to get him to do that forever!” 

“And I really can’t believe he’s letting us learn dark magic,” Lizzie said in shock. 

“I managed to convince him how important it was for this stuff to be known,” Bonnie told them. “And we won’t be getting deep into dark magic. Mostly just the different types and how to recognize it and give you a chance to learn how it feels and how to use it safely.” 

“That’s still awesome. Even more so that you’re going to be our teachers,” Josie said cheerfully. 

“And we’ll be living in the dorms with you too. We’re having an apartment built on the first floor,” Kai added. They were a little less excited about that. Having the entire dorm without adult supervision had been nice. At least it was Uncle Kai and Aunt Bonnie though. If they had to have adults around, at least it was cool adults. 

“What about Uncle Damon and Aunt Elena?” Lizzie asked curiously. 

“We’ll be living in the vampire dorms,” Damon told her. 

“Kaleb is gonna freak,” Josie laughed. “You’re like his idol.”

“Are you going to be teaching too?” Lizzie asked Elena. 

“Not usually, no,” Elena told her. “I’m going to be organizing all of the knowledge we got and getting it all down for the library. I’ll be available to substitute and help out when needed though.” 

“That’s why you want to learn the digital enhancement,” Josie realized, getting a nod. “We’ll bring those disks down tomorrow with the dvds,” she promised as they got ready to leave. 

“You can stay and chat for a while, you know,” Kai chuckled. “It doesn’t have to be all business.” 

“We know,” Lizzie grinned. “But we really want to get these DVDs done.” 

“In that case, have fun,” Bonnie laughed.


	25. Chapter 25

When they brought the wedding videos down the next evening, Josie went to load the digital enhancement software on Elena’s new computer and teach her how to use it which freed Lizzie up to ask, “Uncle Kai? Can I talk to you for a few minutes?” 

“Of course,” Kai told her. “Come on.” He led the way into the next room. “What’s up?” 

“I was wondering…you said before that there was more to the story of you being sent to the prison world,” she bit her lip. She knew that she was probably being silly, but since she was like him, she felt like she needed to know. “I asked mom, but she just started crying…kinda like you look like you’re about to,” she finished with a wince. “I’m sorry. Should I just stop asking?” 

“No, it’s fine,” Kai took a few deep breaths. “It’s hard to talk about, but I don’t intend on hiding it. Not from family at least.” 

“I won’t tell anyone. Well except for Josie, but I tell her everything and she won’t tell anyone either,” Lizzie promised. 

“I would never expect you to keep secrets from your twin,” Kai assured her almost amusedly. “First I want to tell you that, now that we know what’s going on and how to prevent it…you don’t have to be afraid of this happening to you, okay?” He wanted to make that very clear before he started the story. 

“Okay,” Lizzie nodded, getting a little nervous about what was coming now. 

“A little background information first. I mentioned that my parents hated me for being a siphoner. What I didn’t mention was how they actually treated me. I was beaten nearly every day, constantly put down, degraded, and shunned. The idea of anyone touching me more than they absolutely had to was absurd. That was the reason my parents kept having more kids. They wanted a set of twins that wasn’t defective. It ended up taking them five more tries before they got more twins.”

“But I only know Uncle Luke,” Lizzie said confused. 

“We’re getting there,” Kai sighed sadly. “So basically, I was flying off the handle pretty often since I was completely magic-starved. That made my siblings afraid of me too which meant that they shunned me just as much.”

“Even mom? Your own twin?” Lizzie asked horrified. 

“Especially her. She took to trying to protect the younger ones from me and ended up getting the brunt of my temper most of the time. It wasn’t her fault though. She didn’t understand. She didn’t even know how I was being treated by our parents for the most part. No one else say anything but the more minor things and just assumed that it was in response to my acting out.” Kai wanted to make sure that he didn’t accidentally turn her against her mother in all this. 

“I guess I get that,” Lizzie admitted. 

“So then I found out that my parents were about to send me to a prison world. Completely isolated from anyone else for the rest of eternity where I wouldn’t even age or have the chance to die, and I freaked. Completely. Worse than ever before. All my terrified mind could think was that if I was the last then they would have no choice but to let me stay. Even if they kicked me out, it would have better. At least I would still be in the world, so I lost it. I killed four of my siblings. Murdered them in cold blood. I tried to kill the rest, but your mother stopped me. I had cut out her spleen with a hunting knife, but she still managed to get back up and protect Luke and Liv from me,” Kai said hollowly as he paced the room. 

Lizzie got up and barreled into him, wrapping him in a tight hug. “I’m so sorry, Uncle Kai,” she said through her tears. 

Kai couldn’t help but hug her back just as tightly as his own tears started to fall. “You know…most people react the exact opposite way to that story.” 

“Well most people don’t know what it’s like to feel yourself falling completely out of control and being terrified of what you’re going to do or who you’re going to hurt because you know you won’t be able to stop yourself,” she said with a sniffle. 

A soft smile twitched onto Kai’s face as he ran a hand through her hair. “That’s true,” he whispered. “But that’s why I will always be here for you and your sister both. Because I never want anyone else to have to live with the regrets that I do.”

“I’m the reason mom and dad never had more kids,” Lizzie whispered the secret that she had been carrying for a decade. 

“What do you mean?” Kai asked worriedly. 

“I overheard them once. When I was little. They thought I was sleeping. Dad wanted more kids, but Mom said that I was like you and they couldn’t risk it. I didn’t know what they meant until now.”

Kai pulled back and took her face in her hands and looked at her earnestly. “You wouldn’t have been me, Lizzie, and you know why?” 

“Why?” she asked miserably. 

“Because you have everything I never did. A family that loves you and supports you and has always pulled out all the stops to help you in any way they knew how. And now that they /do/ know how, you don’t have anything to fear at all anymore, okay?” 

“Okay,” she nodded with a watery smile before hugging him again. 

When they returned to the other room it was more than obvious to everyone that they had both been crying, but no one mentioned it. Not yet at least. They waited until Josie and Lizzie had left before Bonnie asked, “Everything okay?” 

“She wanted to know about what happened before the prison world,” Kai said. 

Bonnie went over to give him a hug, which he sank into gratefully and Elena tactfully changed the subject. “Josie asked if they could put our wedding videos on their website as examples of her work.” 

“That’s a good idea,” Kai nodded, glad for the change of subject. “But you’re not worried that someone with a grudge or who knew you a long time ago and isn’t in on the secret will see them?” 

“Nah. Anyone who has a grudge against me isn’t likely to go looking for random wedding videos on a teenager’s website, and anyone who knew me forever ago would just assume I’m my son or grandson or whatever and the name was passed down,” Damon told him. 

The next day, all the younger kids spent in the lower class building playing with their friends as was becoming routing, but little Kai and Gabe spent the day doing the end of term testing that the sixth graders had just taken to see if they were ready to join them. Dorian was overseeing those tests. Kai and Bonnie spent most of the day working on their lesson plans while Elena worked on clearing up the images on their drives. Thankfully the program allowed her to just set a queue and worked through them automatically. She just had to add more every few hours and then go through them to make sure they came out okay. Some of them did end up distorted and needed to be done manually so everything still had to be checked. 

Damon on the other hand went looking for Ric. “Any news on the hospital registration?” 

“Unfortunately, it’s not going to be able to happen until the fall. Well technically it could happen as soon as July, but since school will be out then, there’s not much point,” Ric said apologetically. 

“Okay. I don’t expect miracles Ric,” he chuckled. “I’ll just have to make sure I keep my own supply for the family. How may vampire seniors are there who will be graduating in two months?” 

“Only eleven,” Ric told him. “While there are a lot more of age to graduate, we usually kick them back down to at least tenth grade when they get here so they can catch up on all the supernatural classes they missed.” 

“That makes sense,” Damon nodded. “And those eleven seniors I need in a separate class so we can have a crash course. I’ll supply the blood for them. I can’t possible manage all of the vampires, but eleven should be doable. With effort,” he chuckled. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Ric asked worriedly. 

“I don’t want these kids to go out there and get their first taste of human blood with no one around to help them,” Damon explained. “The rest of the students can start next year, but they won’t get that chance.” 

“And the rest of the students for this year?” Ric asked. 

“There’s still plenty we can go over in the meantime. They just won’t get the trips until next year.”

“Okay then. I’ll make sure the schedules put the seniors separate,” Ric promised.


	26. Chapter 26

The next day their new apartments were ready as were their schedules and Ric took part of the morning off to show them their new abodes, starting with the vampires. Their apartment had three bedrooms, a family room and a kitchenette with a large refrigerator for blood. Damon rose his eyebrows at the furniture, recognizing most of it, but he was still bowled over when they got to the master bedroom. “That’s…” 

“Yeah, I took the liberty of pulling all your old bedroom furniture out of storage. I thought it might make you feel more at home,” Ric chuckled. Artemis immediately jumped up on the familiar bed and curled up in the middle happily. “Apparently it makes someone feel more at home,” he laughed. 

Elena laughed with him. “Yeah the dorm room beds we’ve been staying in are barely big enough for the two of us so she’s missed this one.” 

“Great. Now I’m gonna be sleeping under a cat again,” Damon muttered, but everyone could see he was more amused and touched than anything, so no one commented. 

The kids loved their rooms. The girls had always shared a room, and Damien was actually the only one of the kids that had ever had his own room, just as he would here. They quickly set themselves to unpacking while Ric led Damon and Elena into the office. “Now the office here connects to your rooms and the dorms. While your personal rooms have the barrier spell to keep any other students out, the office doesn’t.”

“That makes sense. Gives us a place to meet with the students in semi-privacy,” Damon nodded. “Yeah. I put your desk and some of your old lounge furniture in here too, but you can of course change things around as you see fit.”

“It looks good to me,” Damon shrugged. “Elena?” 

“It’s good for now. I might want to change my desk around at some point, but we’ll have to see how it works,” she agreed. 

“Okay, great. Now, I also had the witches put up silencing spells around your rooms individually. This device is enchanted to raise and lower them. This rune is for the master bedroom, these are the kids rooms, and this is the living area. This one surrounds the entire apartment but takes down all the internal ones. The one for the office is mounted under the desk. That way you can speak privately with students without every vampire in the building able to listen in. When it’s glowing that means the spell is up. Now I’ll leave you to settle in. The rest of the students will be back tomorrow, but there’s still the eleven that stayed for the break so keep that in mind,” Ric told them. 

“Thanks, Ric. We appreciate all the trouble you went to,” Damon told him.

“Don’t mention it, buddy. Just don’t burn my school down and we’ll call it even,” he joked as he headed out to get the Bennetts for their turn with an identical setup.

Once Ric was gone, Damon took out the schedule that Ric gave him and looked it over. “Oh thank god. I could kiss that man,” he said relieved. 

“Can I watch?” Elena teased.

Damon laughed and shook his head. “I have one class a day and all right after lunch.” 

“It’s not like you’re not up early in the mornings anyway,” Elena pointed out amusedly. 

“I know. But I prefer to avoid stress early in the mornings,” he chuckled. “And if I do, by some miracle, get a chance to sleep in, I can take it.” Since the kids always seemed to come to him first in the mornings, he didn’t often get a chance to sleep in. It was one of the few times that Elena’s temper outstripped him. She was more than a little crabby until she had a few cups of coffee. 

“We could always let the kids sleep in the dorms you know,” she joked. 

“Maybe next year,” Damon said. “I think they’ve had enough changes for the time being without taking them away from us all the time too.” 

“I completely agree,” Elena nodded. “We’ll see how things shake out for next year and what they want to do. Assuming they’ll even be allowed in the kid’s dorms of course.” 

Damon took a moment to write up a notice to place on the front door of the dorm that there would be a mandatory meeting of all vampires at six pm the next day in the common room. Since the students had to be back on campus by three that would give them plenty of time to get unpacked and settled first. Once that was done, he headed out to take the kids to the lower school to play for the day while Elena went to the office to get her computer and everything set up. Damon technically had a computer, but he rarely used it unless he needed to check some of their archives for something. He had never been big on technology. 

Once the kids were dropped off, he headed into town to stock up on some things, including fully stocking his liquor cabinet. Finally. They also needed coffee and supplies and he grabbed some hot cocoa for the kids. Then he went back and grabbed a crapload more to keep in his office for the students just in case any of them had a taste for it. His next stop was the bookstore so he didn’t have to keep raiding the library every time he wanted something to read. He managed to not go too far overboard and only bought about thirty books. For now anyway. By the time he got back it was almost lunchtime so he just dropped everything off in his living room to put away later and headed to the dining hall to meet Elena, Kai, Bonnie, and the kids. 

“I don’t think it’s dawned on the kids yet that we’ll be living in separate houses now,” Bonnie told them as they sat, watching the kids as they chatted with their friends. 

“I don’t think so either. Hopefully it won’t be too difficult for them to adjust,” Elena said. 

“Well we’ve always lived in separate wings, so I think they’ll be okay,” Kai reasoned. 

“It’s gonna be so weird not meeting you guys in the kitchen for coffee,” Bonnie said. 

“I know what you mean,” Elena agreed. “It’s going to be an adjustment for all of us.”

“Just coming back to the real world is an adjustment,” Damon pointed out. “This seems rather mild in comparison.” 

“You’ve definitely got a point there,” Kai added. 

“Oh did you get the results of the twins’ testing?” Elena asked. 

“Not yet,” Bonnie told them. “We’re supposed to have them today.” 

“And I’ve got them right here,” Ric said as he came up and handed an envelope each to Bonnie and Kai. 

“We are you gonna tell us or are you going to make us wait for them to read them?” Damon asked impatiently. 

“They both passed, not quite with flying colors, but close,” Ric told them. “They’re cleared to join the sixth grade classes and sleep in the dorms if they want to.” 

“We’ll see what they want to do there,” Kai agreed. 

“Just let me know by tomorrow morning so we can get them room assignments. They’ll be together of course.” 

“We will, Ric. Thanks,” Bonnie said gratefully. While part of her would love to keep her kids at home forever, she knew that they were getting older and it was time to loosen the reins. If they wanted that anyway. With all the changes they were going through already, they might not. 

When the kids came home with them after lunch, Bonnie and Kai had the conversation and they didn’t want to live in the dorms yet, so Bonnie sent a quick messaging spell to Ric to let him know as they got settled into their room in their new apartment too. 

The next day was chaos with all the students arriving back and the Salvatores and the Bennetts mostly stayed in their rooms for the day, partially since the kids were staying home. When it got close to six, Damon, Elena, and all three of the kids headed out to the common room to find most everyone already gathered. A couch immediately cleared for them when they came out and they all took a seat as the students milled around, giving them curious looks but not saying anything yet. Right at six, just as Damon was about to start the meeting, someone else came in. “Hope, right?” Elena asked. 

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be here too or not,” she shrugged. 

“I didn’t realize you were a vampire,” Damon said motioning her to take a seat. 

“She’s a tribrid,” one of the other students said. 

“I’m not familiar with that term,” Damon said looking at Hope curiously. 

“I’m part witch, part werewolf, and part vampire,” she explained. 

Both Damon and Elena’s eyebrows rose at that description, and Elena was the first to recover from the implications. “Well you’re more than welcome. Since you’re only part vampire a lot of this might be irrelevant to you, but I’m sure you’ll find it interesting either way.” 

“Thank you,” Hope said with a nervous smile. She knew her family history with them and could tell by their faces that they had a pretty good idea now of who she was and she wasn’t sure how it was going to pan out.


	27. Chapter 27

“Okay since we’re all here…there are a few things I want to tell you all,” Damon started. “First of all, for anyone who doesn’t know, I’m Damon Salvatore…” he paused as snickers rang through the room. “And this is my wife Elena, and our kids Damien, Steffi, Lynn. Now I’m going to give you all the benefit of the doubt and assume that none of you make a habit of picking on little kids, but this still needs to be said. You mess with my kids and student or not, I /will/ come for you and make you regret it. Understood?” There were emphatic nods all around. “During the, likely rare, times that they are out here in the common area, I will ask you all to remain aware of that and not engage in activities that would traumatize them or subject their mother and I to uncomfortable questions.” That got more than a few laughs as well. 

Elena took over from there. “This is Artemis,” she motioned to the jaguar sitting at their feet. “She will probably be around most of the time, and if you see a harpy eagle flying around outside, that’s Ares. He doesn’t like being inside much though. While Damon and I do have mind links to them, they won’t be spying on you or anything. They only notify us if there is a problem and usually stick close to the kids anyway. Our private rooms are through that door and have a barrier spell up against students, but the door next to it leads to our office which has an open-door policy. If we’re not there and you need something, you’re welcome to knock on the apartment door. I know you’re all a little old for hand-holding through homesickness or nightmares, but we’re still always available if you need someone to talk to.”

“Are you like, the dorm supervisors or something?” someone asked. “We’ve never had that before.” It was clear by the tone of voice that they didn’t like the idea. 

“Yes and no,” Damon shrugged. “We’re not here to impede on your fun or enforce strict rules or anything like that, but in the past there haven’t been any vampires on staff to keep things from getting out of hand here, and given some of the changes that are coming and the way the school is growing, it’s something that both the headmaster and I felt would be helpful.” 

“What kind of changes?” Kaleb asked hopefully. 

“For one thing, all vampires will be given the option to switch to human blood…” Damon paused as the noise levels rose and when they didn’t quiet down again after a moment he put his fingers in his mouth and let out a whistle that did the trick. “Thank you. Now for most of you this won’t go into effect until next year simply because it’s taking time to secure a steady supply. Seniors will be different and we will talk more about that in your first class tomorrow. There is one thing that you need to know first though. If you sign up to switch to human blood, you will have to undergo testing to be sure you’re not a ripper.”

“What kind of testing?” someone asked. 

“What if we’ve already been on human blood before and know we’re not rippers?” Kaleb asked at the same time. 

“In order to be fair, and to be certain, /everyone/ who wants to switch will undergo the testing,” Damon told Kaleb who nodded in acceptance before addressing the other question. “The testing will involve spending the first four days of your new diet in a cell so that you can be monitored for any adverse reactions. If you /are/ a ripper, then you will have to remain there for another week to dry out and get the human blood out of your system.”

“What if we don’t want to be locked up?” someone asked distastefully. 

“Then you don’t get the option to switch to human blood,” Damon said simply. “We’re not going to risk unleashing rippers on a school where more than half the students would make tempting meals. If it helps, rippers are rare and the likelihood of there being more than one or two in a group this size is slim. Other than the seniors you’ll have until the end of the year to think it over. There will be a sign up sheet in my office. If you want to switch, you’ll need to be back a week early for the start of the fall term so you don’t end up missing classes. Are there any more questions?” 

“What will you be teaching us in class?” someone asked from the back. 

“That’s a question I’ll be addressing in class,” Damon answered. “Don’t want to spoil the surprise now do we?” he smirked. When there were no more questions, he said, “One last thing then before I let you all go. I can be your best friend or your greatest enemy. It’s completely up to you which one, but fair warning. You do /not/ want to be on my bad side.” When he got nods all around he got up, Elena and the kids following his lead. “Hope, can we speak in the office? Everyone else is free to do whatever it is you normally do.” Elena shooed the kids into their rooms to start getting ready for bed as she headed for the office with them. 

Hope followed them nervously into the office, but didn’t let her nerves show and held her head high. She had stopped apologizing for her parentage a long time ago and she wasn’t going to start again now. Damon sat at his desk while Elena sat at the edge of it as she asked, “First off, were you a witch turned hybrid or…”

“I was born this way,” Hope said tensely.

“So your father would be Klaus then. I would assume that releasing his werewolf side must have made him able to father children,” Damon realized. 

“Is that going to be a problem?” she asked confrontationally. 

“Not at all,” Damon shook his head. “That’s part of why we wanted to talk to you. I’m guessing since you’re here that we’re not at war with the originals anymore, so…”

“They’re all gone,” Hope told him. 

“Gone as in…” Elena asked curiously. 

“Dead. Including my parents,” she said curtly. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Damon was the first to say as Elena was still trying to wrap her head around how vampires weren’t extinct then, but she decided that was a question for another day. 

“You hated him,” she pointed out, not believing Damon for a moment. 

“Yes. I did. It was his mission in life to kill and then use my wife. It was warranted. That doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize with your loss. He was still your father and I know how difficult it is to lose parents. Even crappy ones like my father.” 

“I loved my father, for all his faults, he was still there for me,” Hope said, wanting to get it out in the open that she wasn’t going to listen to anyone disparage him if she could help it. It was bad enough all the books did. 

“And that’s what matters,” Elena nodded. “No one is going to fault you for loving your parents.”

“And neither of us are the type to hold the sins of the parents against the children,” Damon told her. “My father was a notorious vampire hunter after all.”

“And my father was also a vampire hunter and a researcher for a secret society that tortured vampires in the name of science,” Elena added. 

“Which means as far as we’re concerned, the past is the past, and our relationship with you will be based solely on /your/ actions. Not your father’s or anyone else’s,” Damon finished. 

“Thank you,” Hope said finally relaxing. 

“And I hope you also know that, even though you’re only part vampire, our door is still open to you and you’re still welcome in the dorms anytime,” Elena told her. “In fact, our door is open to any students, but we’re only officially in charge of the vampires,” she chuckled. 

“You’re a lot different than I expected,” Hope admitted. 

“I’m sure you’ve probably heard more stories about us than the rest of the school,” Damon huffed a laugh. 

“Pretty much. My dad did admire you though, not that he would have admitted it to anyone else,” Hope told them. 

“Oh?” Elena asked in surprise, while Damon was still trying to find words. 

“Yeah. Something about fighting for a lost cause and never giving up. He admired both of your tenacity,” Hope said. 

“Lost causes are kind of our specialty,” Damon chuckled. 

“Making it out of a prison world after sixteen years proves that pretty well,” Hope laughed. “Not to mention finding a way to make vampire babies.” 

“One more question, more a curiosity than anything, and feel free not to answer, but…can your blood cure werewolf bites like your father’s?” Elena asked. 

“Yeah. It can. In fact I give a little blood every month for the infirmary so there’s always some on hand in case of accidents, not that it’s ever been needed as far as I know,” Hope told them. 

“Okay good. That does make me feel better about having vampires and werewolves at the same school,” Damon nodded relieved. 

“And thank you for being willing to do that,” Elena told her. “And for talking with us.”

“You’re welcome,” Hope said with a smile as she got up to head out, recognizing the dismissal.


	28. Chapter 28

Both Kai and Bonnie ended up with similar schedules with two classes per day. Bonnie was only teaching the witches and only three years of them, so she had far fewer students, but given the practical nature of the classes and potential dangers, they were much smaller. All of their classes were in the morning as well, so the first day of classes, they all headed to the dining hall together for breakfast. As the younger kids split off to the lower school table, the twins nervously went towards the other student tables and Bonnie and Kai sighed with relief when Lizzie and Josie called them over to sit with them and introduced their cousins to their friends. 

When Damon and Elena sat down beside them, Bonnie asked Damon, “Do you have classes this morning too?” 

“Nope. I’m free until after lunch. We wanted to see the kids off for their first day though,” he told them. 

“They’ve been doing the same thing and going to the same place for a week,” Kai pointed out amusedly. 

“I know. But this is their first official day of school,” Elena replied. “That’s special.” 

“I know what you mean. Mine are starting the upper school even,” Bonnie said, blinking back the tears from her eyes at the thought. 

“Speaking of, did you decide what we’re doing for their birthday tomorrow?” Damon asked curiously. 

“Yeah, actually. I’m gonna wait until this weekend to give them a chance to make some friends among their classmates instead of just the lower school kids and then throw a little party in the gardens,” Bonnie explained. 

“I like that idea,” Elena smiled. “And for once we get to get an actual cake that we don’t butcher,” she laughed. 

“Hey, I’m a good baker,” Kai protested. “It’s not my fault none of you can decorate.” 

After breakfast, they all went their separate ways and Kai and Bonnie went to teach their first classes. Kai took a deep breath for calm as the students filed in and he wanted until they were all seated, giving smiles and nods to Josie and Lizzie, glad that his first class had them for moral support. When he called the role he made sure to match each face to a name and was glad that he had a pretty good memory. “Welcome to Uncommon Magics,” he said clearly. “My name is Kai Bennett, for those of you that don’t know.”

“What’s the point of this class?” someone asked snottily from the back. 

“This class will only be mandatory for one year. After that it will be an elective. In that first year, I hope to teach you to understand your classmates with unusual abilities like siphoners,” he nodded to Josie and Lizzie who smiled. “Or rare species such as phoenixes,” he nodded at Landon Kirby whose name he recognized. “As well as an overview of other species and rare types of magic that will be explored more in depth in later years should you choose to continue…Josie?” he noticed her hand up. 

“What kind of other species?” she asked curiously. 

“I know that you all learned in origins of species how vampires and werewolves were both created from witch’s curses, yes?” he asked and they all nodded. “Well before that, there were a lot of different magical species around the world that were hunted to extinction…at least as far as we know. In our travels in the prison world though we ran across dozens of magically hidden locations. Places not hidden with the spirit magic you’re all familiar with. Now it’s possible that these places had been hidden and preserved for thousands of years. Or, in this world, they are still being used to hide from the greater numbers of witches, vampires, and werewolves. To answer your question, Josie…species like fairies, trolls, gargoyles, gorgons, hags, banshees, yetis, dragons, centaurs, satyrs, mermaids, nymphs, dryads, and so on.” 

“Those are all real?” Serena asked skeptically. 

“They were at one time, yes,” Kai told her. “For now though, we’re going to start with siphoners. Now siphoners were once revered in places like Egypt and South America. This was because of their ability to remove magic from objects and people and in those regions, curses were tossed around like confetti, so I’m sure you can imagine how handy it could be to have someone around who could remove the magic from the curse. To demonstrate, I have two cursed objects here that the headmaster was kind enough to give me for this purpose from the armory.” There were a lot of cursed objects locked up there that they hadn’t been able to dispel. “This one has a relatively minor acne curse on it. Do I have any volunteers to test it? I’ll siphon the curse, of course.”

“You’re a siphoner too?” Raphael asked. 

“I am,” Kai nodded. “And I have plenty of experience pulling curses. My family have run across plenty exploring old tombs and temples,” he chuckled. 

“I’ll do it,” Landon offered, getting up and walking to the front. 

“Thank you, Landon. Just go ahead and touch it anywhere,” Kai told him. When he did, acne sprouted all over his face. 

“You call that minor?” Penelope snorted amusedly. 

“Minor as in it doesn’t cause any pain and isn’t potentially life threatening if something goes wrong,” Kai clarified. “Now just give me your hand.” Landon hesitated for a second before putting his hand in Kai’s and they could see a slight glow from their joined hands as Landon returned to normal. “And there you go. The curse is gone,” Kai nodded, and Landon went back to his seat. “Now most cursed objects aren’t just once and done. They will keep applying the curse to anyone who touches them. Normally the only way to dispel these curses is for the witch who cast it to do so. Unless you have a siphoner handy.” Kai picked it up and they all saw a glow again as he sucked all the magic out of it. “And now it’s completely harmless. Catch,” he tossed it at a random student who gasped as she caught it and then relaxed when she realized that nothing happened. 

“That’s pretty cool,” MG said with a grin. 

“Thank you, MG,” Kai chuckled. “Now for those of you thinking, oh it’s just a simple acne curse. Big deal. That’s what this one is for,” he pulled out the other cursed object, wrapped in a cloth. “This one, no one living will be testing. This is an ancient Egyptian mummifying curse. One of the strongest curses known. It will kill a human in less than a minute if not siphoned. Let me demonstrate.” He unwrapped the object and touched it to the watermelon he’d brought for this purpose and the whole class watched with a shudder as all the moisture was sucked from it and it started to shrivel up. Kai then placed his hand on it and sucked the magic out, restoring it to its pristine condition. “Now this object can still mummify anyone as of right now, but…” he placed his hand on it and sucked the magic out. “Now it’s perfectly safe. And /that/ is why siphoners were valuable.” 

“So you’re just here to tell us that Lizzie and Josie are special,” someone scoffed. 

“No. I tell you that to give you an example of what this kind of magic can do. There are drawbacks though. Just like with any other kind of magic. There is always a balance. You see, siphoners are born magically blank but still craving magic. There are many ways we can get that magic. As babies and young children we normally get it from our parents or siblings from simple physical contact. This is a passive siphon and is instinctual. We can also use what is called a controlled siphon which is pulling directly from someone. This doesn’t hurt at all and only decreases the magical reserves temporarily. If it’s pulled slowly enough they can even replenish constantly. Sometimes it can take a few hours depending on how much is taken. The final way is an uncontrolled pull. This actually takes much more concentration and effort than the other two ways. The uncontrolled pull does hurt and can severely deplete a witch and even knock a vampire or werewolf unconscious as they lose more magic than their bodies can sustain.” 

“That doesn’t sound like much of a drawback to me,” someone snorted. 

“That part isn’t the drawback. The drawback comes when you don’t get enough magic. Such as if your parents are non-magical and your only sibling is also a siphoner,” he nodded to Josie and Lizzie, having had permission from them to use as an example, not really wanting the school as a whole to know his much worse story. “Then you have a tendency to go through a type of magical withdrawal. Almost all siphoners in history have had this problem. This withdrawal causes emotional instability, violent outbursts, and even in rare cases, death.”


	29. Chapter 29

One of the students laughed and Kai noticed who it was when she spoke, “Everyone make sure to touch Lizzie today so she doesn’t have one of her fits,” she taunted. 

Kai narrowed his eyes at her, catching Lizzie’s wince out of the corner of his eye. “Do you think this is funny, Ms. Chang?” When she gulped and didn’t respond he continued. “I learned of a siphoner once who was abused and neglected by his family. Starved of any contact whatsoever because they feared he would steal all their magic, and do you know what happened?” He paused for dramatic effect. “He ended up losing control and slaughtering his own family. When he realized what he’d done, he tried many times to take his own life, but magic wouldn’t let him. Do you still think it’s funny?” 

“No, sir,” she said weakly. As someone who killed her own family in a magical outburst that she couldn’t control, it was definitely not funny to her. 

“It takes a very long time a severe case to get that bad, but it can happen. Now that the information is known on how to prevent those issues, it makes it easier to do so. One of my children is a siphoner as well and he has problems with that now that he is getting older and doesn’t get as much physical contact with his family. He knows to reach out for help when he starts feeling unstable, and now Lizzie and Josie do as well. This doesn’t mean that anyone can just walk up and touch them at any time. That’s still just as rude as it ever was, but I hope, now that you realize the reason behind it, you will all be more understanding. That’s the purpose of this class, whether we’re talking about those you know or those you may meet sometime in the future. Understanding…yes MG?”

“Can I ask, Lizzie a question?” Kai looked to Lizzie who nodded. “If we notice you starting to get upset, what would you be comfortable with us doing for you?” 

Kai smiled brightly at the question as Lizzie answered. “Just grab my arm or my hand if I’m wearing long sleeves. And remind me to breathe. But I should be okay now that I have magical family here. Thank you though, MG.” 

Since that subject seemed to be done with, Kai moved on. “Another reason siphoners are useful, beyond removing curses, is their ability to sense magic. This takes a lot of time and practice to do reliably, but it’s how we found so many hidden storehouses of knowledge. I was able to sense the large concentrations of magic and siphon the spells keeping them hidden. Everything magical gives off an aura and the larger and more powerful it is, the easier it is to sense from a distance. We can even ‘taste’ for lack of a better word, the magic of people and figure out where their magical talents lie and what kind of magic they’re most suited for and in some cases figure out bloodline gifts if there are any. Most importantly, we can sense curses and spells /before/ people run afoul of them.” 

“Okay that’s pretty awesome,” Raphael admitted. 

“Can you sense every spell cast in the school?” Serena asked curiously.”

“Not exactly,” Kai told her. “With so much magic here the walls of the school have soaked it up and turned this entire place into a magical nexus. To give you an example, this school is about as magical as Stonehenge now.” He paused for the murmuring to die down. “To answer your question, any magic cast in a room I’m in I can sense…including the messaging spells you’ve been using for half the class,” he smirked. “And certain types of magic I would be able to sense anywhere within say a mile radius, at least…Hope?” 

“What types of magic?” she asked him. 

“Black magic for one. Dark magic doesn’t bother me, but black magic is…unsettling. Soul magic is another kind. Necromancy. Mostly the things that none of you should /ever/ be dabbling in. The kinds of things that cause witches to go mad in ways that they can never come back from,” he warned. “So rest assured that if I sense anything like that I /will/ be coming to find the culprit. And that sort of magic lingers forever so you will be easy to find.” 

“What’s the difference between dark magic and black magic?” Josie asked. 

“Dark magic deals with things like blood or channels strong emotion. Dark magic can be used safely…if you know how. I would caution you all not to use it until you learn how to do so safely. Dark magic can be cleansed. Black magic is very different. It deals in death, usually of innocents. It pulls power from other planes of existence that will use the practitioner as a conduit into this world. It destroys a bit of your soul even for the simplest spells. It can’t be cleansed or taken back.” 

“Is that what almost killed you when you first got back?” Lizzie asked. 

Kai winced, really wishing she hadn’t brought that up. “Yes. There was an artifact smuggled into the tunnels under the school that was filled with black soul magic that I had to siphon to render it safe. That magic attacked my own magic and fought a battle within me that I wouldn’t have survived if not for a dark spell that my wife found that consumed magic, particularly the black soul magic that was trying to consume me.” He left out a lot of that story, but hoped he had gotten the point of the dangers across. And let them know that he would be able to sense that kind of magic, even as far down as the tunnels. Not that he had sensed it then, but if he had been paying attention he would have. “And that’s all we have time for today,” he finished up and they started filing out. 

Josie and Lizzie stopped to talk to him. “That was great, Uncle Kai. You’re a really good teacher,” Josie told him with a grin. 

“Could you tell how nervous I was?” he asked in a stage whisper.

“Just a little bit,” Lizzie teased pulling a laugh from Kai. 

They both gave him a quick hug before heading out which was when Kai noticed someone else loitering at the door. “Landon. I think I can guess what you’re here for, but why don’t you tell me anyway.”

“You know about phoenixes?” he asked hopefully. “No one else really knows anything and I’m just…”

“I don’t know a lot, yet,” Kai told him. “We’re still working on translating the relevant texts and Damon is the only one of us that speaks Greek so it’s slow going. Especially since the information is pretty much found in a paragraph here and there. We’ve yet to find any kind of comprehensive guide, but there’s still a lot of stuff we haven’t gone through yet.” 

“Anything you have would be helpful,” Landon told him. 

“Normally, I would avoid giving out the notes for my lessons in advance for obvious reasons, but in this case I’ll make an exception. If you want to swing by my office in the witch dorms after classes I’ll make copies of what I have. And of course let you know anything else I find.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bennett,” Landon said relieved.

“Anytime,” Kai said with a smile. “I know what it’s like to be different and not know where you fit or even what you’re capable of. I didn’t know anything about siphoners other than what I figured out through trial and error until about six years ago, so for fifty years of my life, I knew nothing about what I was. I won’t let anyone go through that if I can help in any way.” 

“Well I appreciate it,” Landon said gratefully, realizing that his teacher had it even worse than him. “I’ll see you after classes,” he said as he rushed off to his next class. 

Kai got about fifteen minutes to breathe before his next class and last one of the day which was essentially a repeat of the first. He would be teaching everyone of every year the same thing for now. He wasn’t sure if the mandatory year would be counting this one since the class started so late in the year so he was going to squeeze as much as he could in. He assumed that would be the factor in whether Ric would make these kids take it for an extra year next year or not. Whether he could get across the basics of everything they needed to know in this amount of time. He would end up cutting out a lot that he wanted to teach, but if they had to take it again next year, he could always come back around to it. If not, he would save it for the electives.


	30. Chapter 30

“So how were your first classes?” Damon asked Kai and Bonnie at lunch. 

“Well according to Josie and Lizzie I did great,” Kai chuckled. 

“They told me the same thing,” Bonnie laughed. “Wonder if they were just saying that.” 

“Nah I’m sure you did fine,” Damon told them. 

“You nervous about your first class?” Kai asked. 

“Not really,” Damon lied. “How hard can it be?” Kai and Bonnie spent the rest of lunch laughing at him for that before Damon headed to class and they headed home. 

Damon leaned against the back wall lazily as the eleven senior students filed in. Once they were all seated he said, “Okay first things first. I’m not Mr. Salvatore, or sir, or anything like that. I’m Damon. Period. Got it?” He got chuckles and nods from the class. “Now, I mentioned that things would be different for the seniors since you’re not going to be here next year. Before we get started though, is there anyone here that does /not/ want to switch to human blood?” 

“What exactly are the benefits?” someone asked. “I mean, there is a lot of talk and rumors, but it’s hard to know what’s true and what’s not.” 

“Good question,” Damon nodded to her. “First of all the taste is a million times better. I can’t even keep down the animal stuff it’s so nasty. But human blood is much healthier for you. It makes you stronger and faster. You don’t have to drink nearly as much. On a normal day where I don’t have to do too much healing and such, I don’t need more than one bag of blood per day.” He knew that most of these kids had three or four at least. “But the most important thing is the mental affects. On animal blood your compulsions are far less reliable. They don’t always take and when they do it’s possible to break them. And of course there is the fact that…” He projected an image of himself into each of their minds and that image said, “I can get into all of your heads.” 

The kids were all more than a little unsettled at that, and one of them asked incredulously, “So basically if we stay on animal blood we’re sitting ducks for any other vampires we run into in the world?” 

“Pretty much,” Damon nodded. 

“Why would they do that to us?” another person asked. “Make us so weak.” 

“I’m gonna give you kids the real answer instead of the stock answer,” Damon said. Most of the real answer anyway. Without the part that would throw Ric under the bus. “Securing enough human blood to feed more than a hundred vampires on a daily basis is complicated. It’s possible now because I’m here. I know the ins and outs of the blood bank system and am strong enough to compel whoever needs to be compelled, and know who they are, but it still takes time to set up. Secondly, drinking human blood requires learning how to do so safely. Something that only another vampire could teach you and there wasn’t one available and willing to do so until now.” 

“Safely, how?” 

“Let me preface this by saying that if any of you use what I teach you to start intentionally dropping bodies, I will come for you. Accidents here and there are one thing. Taking out threats is also different. But if you start leaving a trail of innocent bodies it draws the attention of hunters, and then, not only do you die, but you risk the knowledge of this school reaching the vampire hunter community. And as a tip…turning off your humanity almost always causes a trail of bodies, so I would definitely advise against it unless you want me to be the one to track you down and kill you.”

“You would kill us?” someone asked worriedly. 

“Let me put it into perspective for you,” Damon said seriously. “Getting a vampires humanity back is a grueling process that takes months if not years of constant one on one attention and handholding. I have an entire school full of students that I’m responsible for and I don’t have the time and energy for that, nor do I know anyone who does. As long as you are out there drawing that kind of attention, this entire school is at risk. The school that houses hundreds of children, including my own. Do you get the picture?” When he got a room full of nervous nods, some of them still looked like they doubted that he would do it. “As I have told everyone, I have no problems being the bad guy. I’ll make the tough decisions. Decide who lives and who dies. It doesn’t bother me a bit. As long as it keeps the people I love safe. And if any of you think that your one life is worth more to me than the lives of every student here…the lives of my own children…then go ahead and test me. It’ll be the last thing you do.” 

“But we’re you’re students too,” someone protested weakly.

“Yes. You are. Right now. That means there is very little you could do to get me to kill you. But once you graduate and walk out those doors, you’re not anymore. Killing you would never be my first choice, and I hope you don’t force me into it, but the students still here are and will always be my priority. So are we clear? No dropping bodies unnecessarily.” He waited until everyone nodded before he moved on. “So back to the original question, does anyone /not/ want to switch to human blood?” When no one raised their hand, he said. “Okay then. Everyone meet in the dungeon after your last class on Wednesday. Make arrangements to get any notes you miss for Thursday and Friday classes, and pack for at least a four day stay.”

“Who’s going to be doing the observing and how closely will we be observed?” one of the girls asked nervously. 

“No one is going to be invading your privacy if that’s what you’re worried about,” Damon told her. “There will be spells up to observe your vitals and overall health and mood and either myself or my wife will be checking in on you a few times a day to ask some questions and see how you’re doing.” 

“That’s not so bad,” someone sighed in relief. 

“Now, on to what we’ll be covering in this class. Since you all only have a little over two months left at this school, we’ll be having a crash course. There will be a lot coming at you fast, and there will also be trips to practice. You’ll learn the essentials of the snatch, eat, erase technique, how to feed openly and safely, and how to procure blood from blood banks without causing too much suspicion. If we have enough time, we can go more in depth for those things, but that’s what you absolutely have to have before you get out into the world.” 

“So if we’re rippers, do we still have to take the class?” 

“Yes you do, and let me tell you why. If you’re a ripper, you are going to struggle. When and if you do fall off the wagon, the less you have to worry about ‘how’ to do it, the more energy you can expend on keeping control. You still need to know the whys and hows. You will, however, not be going on any of the trips, obviously. You’ll just be studying the theory.” 

“What kind of trips?” 

“You will each get at least three, maybe more, but not all of you at once. There will be one to a blood bank to resupply the blood you’ll be drinking. One to a club or party where you can learn to feed in the open without drawing suspicion, and one where you can practice the basic snatch, eat, erase in the street. My wife will be coming along on these trips to help me keep an eye on you and prevent any accidents. Almost all of these trips will take place at night on the weekends so you’re not too tired for classes the next day.” 

“Will they be here in Mystic Falls?” 

“No,” Damon said firmly. “The ban on feeding in Mystic Falls is still in place. The sheriff and most of the town leadership is in the know about the supernatural and keep a very close eye on those things with the school here. Not to mention, they randomly vervain certain places in town, making feeding much more complicated and dangerous. Even after graduation, this town will be off limits. Even /I/ don’t feed here. We’ll be traveling to a nearby city. First lesson for you, larger cities are always easier to feed in.” Damon looked at the clock. “For now, we’re out of time, so make sure you’re in the dungeons the day after tomorrow after classes. Now shoo.”


	31. Chapter 31

Bonnie had just left to go pick up the kids from the lower school when there was a knock on the office door and Kai waved a hand to open it for Landon. “Have a seat,” Kai told him with a smile before handing over a folder. “I just duplicated my notes on the subject, so this is everything I have. The things circled in red, I’ve deemed too personal to share with the school as a whole. If it’s circled in blue, it’s speculation without much to back it up.”

Landon opened the folder and glanced through it. “You have the original text here too?” 

“I always keep the original text with it just in case I need to check the translations,” Kai told him. 

“That makes sense,” Landon nodded. “Thank you again for this.” 

“You’re very welcome,” Kai nodded just as the twins ran into the office excitedly. 

“Dad! Guess what?!” Gabe chirped, not even noticing the other student sitting there. 

Landon chuckled and got up. “I guess I’ll let you get on with your day.” 

Once they were alone, Kai got a rundown of all the classes the twins attended, all of their classmates, everything they learned, and so on. Bonnie arrived about five minutes into the recitation and it started over. The little ones, thankfully, were far less excited. While the classes part was new, they already knew all the kids and the area and even the teachers, so their recitation was much shorter. Once that was done, Bonnie was able to get a word in edgewise. “We’re gonna be keeping Damien, Steffi, and Lynn tomorrow night. Damon and Elena need to hit a blood bank for the senior class vampires.”

“Okay,” Kai nodded. “The kids will probably appreciate the sleepover.” 

“Steffi and Lynn can use our room,” little Kai offered as Gabe nodded. “We and Damien can have a camp out in the living room.” 

“That’s very nice of you boys,” Bonnie chuckled. “But remember it’s still a school night so you still need to go to sleep at the normal time.” They groaned but agreed.

The next night went well for all involved. For the most part. It took an extra hour to get the boys settled down to sleep, but under the circumstances it was a small miracle. The blood bank run for Damon and Elena went perfectly and they came back with an extra five hundred bags of blood to add to the hundred they still had left. That should get the family and the eleven seniors through at least a month. It would take Damon at least that long to be comfortable taking them to the blood banks for more. 

When Wednesday came around, no one, surprisingly, balked at being locked up, and their first taste of human blood…since their turning of course…made all of them go a little wide-eyed. Damon brought them two bags a day, one at breakfast and the other after classes. It was more than they strictly needed, but if they wanted to be sure to catch any rippers, a slight gorging was necessary. Not to mention, after so long on animal blood, he wanted to build their strength up a little faster. All these kids had been here for over two years at least already. 

It was Thursday when Kai felt something different in one of his classes and he made sure to walk around the room to try and pinpoint it as he talked. Once the demonstrations were done of course. Thankfully the armory had no shortage of cursed objects since he was using them up so fast. It wasn’t until about halfway through the class that he figured out who was different and called him to stay after. It was the second class of the day and there was still half an hour before lunch so he had a few minutes to talk. Kai went over and sat in the desk next to the nervous student. “You’re not in any trouble, Wade,” he assured him. 

“Okay. That’s good,” Wade said still a little nervous. 

“I’ll keep it secret if you want, but I’m curious…what are you?” Kai asked. 

“What do you mean?” Wade asked confused. “I’m a witch.” Then he remembered what Kai said about being able to sense different types of magic and species. “Aren’t I?” 

“Are your parents witches?” Kai asked. 

“I don’t know,” Wade shrugged. “I was abandoned at a church right after I was born and then adopted.” 

“I see,” Kai nodded. He’d been chatting with the other teachers all week about the students and most of them had mentioned this one. A whiz at the theory, but could barely manage to cast anything. “I’ve heard about the problems you’ve been having with casting magic.” 

Wade looked down sadly. “Yeah. I’m not a very good witch I guess.”

“That’s because you’re not a witch,” Kai explained. “Your magic is being forced into a shape that it’s not designed for. You don’t have spirit magic like witches do.” 

“Then what am I? What kind of magic do I have?” Wade asked with a spark of hope in his eyes. Maybe he wasn’t a complete failure after all. 

“I’m not sure yet,” Kai said. “Do you mind if I sample a bit of your magic to see?” he held out his hand in invitation. 

Wade didn’t even hesitate to place his hand in Kai’s. He desperately wanted to know. “What is it?” he asked almost worried at the odd look on his teacher’s face as he let go of his hand. 

“I’m not entirely sure,” Kai said thoughtfully. “It feels familiar almost, but not exactly. Like I’ve felt something similar. From a related species. I just can’t remember where at the moment. Give me a little time to research?” 

“Okay,” Wade nodded enthusiastically before stopping. “It’s not…bad or anything though is it?” 

“No, nothing like that,” Kai shook his head. “There’s nothing menacing about it. There is a hint of danger to it, but it’s that way for everything. Everything has the ability to protect itself if needed. Nothing to worry about though. In fact, it’s more pure than most types of magic I’ve run across. That should help me narrow it down at least.” 

“Okay. Thanks Mr. Bennett. I really hope you figure it out.”

“I will. I promise. It might just take a little while. In the meantime, don’t stress too much if your spells don’t come out right. Keep up with the theory and do your best of course, but don’t let it get you down if the magic isn’t perfect.” Wade beamed at him and headed out of the room towards lunch. 

Elena had joined them for lunch today, as she did about half the time. Whenever she wasn’t lost in whatever she was working on. That meant that Kai could ask them all. “Hey do you guys remember me talking anytime about a magic that wasn’t spirit magic but was light and pure?” 

“There were a few times, I think,” Elena wracked her brain as she thought. 

“A couple places in Asia gave you that feel,” Bonnie said. “I can’t remember where exactly.”

“You were practically giddy in Ireland,” Damon reminded him with a chuckle. 

“That’s it!” Kai realized. “Ireland. Elena can you shoot me all the files we have from Ireland? And maybe the surrounding areas too, just to make sure I don’t miss anything.”

“What’s this about?” Bonnie asked curiously. 

“We have a witch that isn’t a witch,” Kai told her. “I’m trying to figure out what he is.” 

“He doesn’t know?” Damon asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“Nope. He was adopted, so he’s completely in the dark about his family,” Kai answered. 

“If you need some help going through it, I’ll help,” Bonnie offered. “My Gaelic sucks though so I’ll need the translated files.” 

“I would appreciate that,” Kai said with a smile. “If nothing else, sorting out the spirit magic information would be a big help so I only have to go through the rare stuff.” 

“We would help, but we’ve got our hands full with the vampire testing,” Damon shrugged. 

“But I’ll still send everything over of course,” Elena assured him. 

“And I still need to work on the magical locks for the blood fridge, but that’ll only take me a few hours at most, so I’ve got plenty of time,” Bonnie told them. “Especially since I’m not giving any homework this week.”

“Only a monster gives homework after the first class of the semester,” Damon joked, making them all roll their eyes. He wasn’t exactly wrong through. 

It was Saturday afternoon before Kai called Wade into the office. “So I’ve been doing some research and I figured out where I felt something similar. It was in Ireland. The leprechauns to be precise. Now leprechauns, while they’ve been a race of their own for a long time, they were originally the offspring of fairies and elves. It took a bit of research and narrowing down, but I’ve figured out that your magic is most definitely fairy magic.”

“I’m a fairy?” Wade asked with wide eyes. 

“Yes. Now there are a lot of different types of fairy, some I was able to rule out, but there are still a few that I don’t really know you well enough yet to do so. Here’s what I have on those types, so maybe you can figure it out from there. I would love to know what conclusions you come to though. In fact, why don’t you make that the topic of your term paper for the semester?”

“That’s a great idea Mr. Bennett. Thanks. I’ll at least let you know what kind of fairy I am if I figure it out before then though.”

“I would greatly appreciate that,” Kai chuckled at his enthusiasm. “Now would you mind other people knowing what you are? I’m sure that a lot of species have hidden themselves among witches over the centuries, but…”

“No, it’s good. I don’t mind,” Wade grinned. “I’m just glad I’m not a total magical failure.”

“Okay. I’ll add some info about fairies to this semester and we’ll see if we can’t figure out a little more about fairy magic and find ways to integrate it.”


	32. Chapter 32

By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around and Damon and Elena were delivering the last testing bag to the senior vampires, they had come to the conclusion that there weren’t any rippers in this group and they were all let out, but asked to line up. Bonnie had come with them this time and was holding an enchanted device. “I need three drops of everyone’s blood on this,” she told them.

Once it was done, Damon explained. “I’m sure you’ve all noticed the new fridge in the office. And I wouldn’t be surprised if most of you have tried to open it and failed.” There were a few sheepish looks and snickers among the students. “Once this is mounted on the fridge, everyone who is keyed in will be able to open it. That’s where the human blood will be stored. You will /not/ under any circumstances share the blood with anyone else. If anyone is caught doing so then this entire method will have to be scrapped and I’ll have to keep all the blood in my rooms and dole it out personally. I’ve convinced the headmaster that you’re all mature enough to be trusted with access though. Don’t make me a liar. Remember that my bad side isn’t a good place to be.” 

Bonnie rolled her eyes at Damon’s handling of the vampires. She wasn’t a big fan of the whole intimidation angle, even if he was right about it being necessary. Vampires were studies in extremes. The whole best friend or greatest enemy line he had going was really the best way to handle them, with regular reminders of which way they wanted to go. That was why Elena took a backseat more often than not with handling them as a whole. She wasn’t nearly as good at the whole intimidation thing. That didn’t mean she wasn’t around. She was still okay at the best friend angle and was becoming sort of like the nest mother that they came to with problems they weren’t comfortable taking to Damon. 

The following Friday night Damon proved just how much he meant the best friend angle. He and Elena had been relaxing with a few drinks while the kids worked on their homework after dinner when the noise started from the common room. He heard MGs voice say, “Guys, Damon and Elena are right through there.”

“So what?” someone replied. “They have silencing spells on the apartment and they don’t usually come out after dinner.” 

Damon and Elena raised an eyebrow at each other when Lizzie’s voice carried through the walls. “Don’t be such wusses. Uncle Damon and Aunt Elena are cool. They won’t care anyway.” 

“Should we go out there?” Elena asked amusedly. 

“Nah. Not yet. Give them time to get the party going first,” Damon chuckled. “Then we can watch them all have coronaries before we join in.” 

Elena laughed. “I do like the way you think. I guess we do still have to get the kids into bed first anyway.” 

By the time they were tucking the kids into bed, with the silencing spell up on their rooms of course, the party was in full swing and the music was blaring. Damon went out first while Elena changed, not really wanting to hit the party in her sweats. As soon as Damon stepped out, it was like a ripple of fear went across the room as everyone froze and bottles and cups were shoved behind backs and a few people rushed to stand in front of a table at the back to block it from view. Damon smirked as he walked up to Kaleb who he’d seen with a bottle and reached out a hand without a word. Kaleb winced as he handed over the bottle, and Damon took a good look at it before saying. “The least you could do is drink decent booze.” He rolled his eyes and stepped into the office for a moment, leaving everyone confused as he came back with a large bottle of whiskey. “Now, everyone who wants to try it gets one shot. Just so you know how much better the good stuff is for next time. The rest is mine.” 

They all blinked at him in surprise, most of them clearly wondering if it was a test, but Josie and Lizzie were the first to line up for shots as Elena came out and hugged Damon from behind. “I hope I get more than one shot at least.”

Damon laughed and turned for a quick kiss. “You have the power to make me sleep on the couch. What do you think?” he joked, getting laughter from most of the students as well who relaxed slightly. “Like I said, I’m not here to kill the buzz or ruin your fun. Still…I do have to take an adult moment and tell you that this is weekends only. No partying on school nights. If you can agree to that, we can get this party started back up.” When no one disagreed, Damon asked “What happened to the music?” as he poured the shots that were getting drank faster. Once the music was going again, Damon rolled his eyes again. “It’s not a party if you’re not dancing,” he yelled out over the music, reaching out to grab both Josie and Lizzie since they were the only ones he could be certain wouldn’t read too much into it and dragged them to the cleared area in the middle and started spinning them both around as they laughed. 

Elena grinned and grabbed two other vampires at random and pulled them out too and before long the dance floor was full. After a while though it cleared for a few of the students to get into break dancing as everyone else, Damon and Elena included, bounced around the edges passing bottles around. Most of the cups of booze cut with soda or juice were kept away from the dance floor, but the bottles were a different story. There was still some spillage, but not nearly as much. 

It was almost one am when the front door opened and Ric came in. The first people to notice him froze, much as they had when Damon came out, despite being much more drunk now and the wave continued as more and more people turned to see why. “I want everyone in bed now,” Ric snapped, glaring at Damon, who was caught in the process of mixing a few drinks. When the vampires blurred out of the room, Ric noticed Elena in the middle of the dance floor and shot her a look of betrayal and got a sheepish shrug in response. It wasn’t until the handful of witches in attendance tried to slip past him out the door that he noticed Josie and Lizzie and grabbed their arms, opening his mouth to say something before changing his mind. “Just go to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.” They were obviously pretty drunk, but not completely smashed. 

Now that it was just the three adults Ric motioned towards the office, not trusting himself to say a word yet, and Damon and Elena headed that way, Damon with a smug smirk and Elena looking a little chastised. Once the door closed behind them, Damon decided not to put up the silencing spell that Ric obviously thought he did. Let the kids see how things like this were handled. He was sure most if not all of them were listening in anyway. “What the hell were you thinking?!” Ric yelled, clearly thinking the silencing spell was active. “Drinking and partying with teenage students?!” 

Damon burst into laughter and Ric looked torn between grabbing a stake and pure shock at his reaction. “Come on, Ric. How many parties did I used to throw for the high school kids? Most of them a lot wilder than this. Plus…they’re all home already. No need to worry about them trying to travel.”

“That’s different!” Ric snapped. “You’re their teacher now!” 

“And how many of those parties back then did you come to and spend the night drinking with your students? I even seem to remember a Miss Elena Gilbert’s eighteenth birthday party where a certain history teacher ended up doing kegstands with his students,” Damon smirked. 

“/One/ kegstand,” Ric argued. “And that was your fault.” 

“Sure, sure. Blame me. Which begs the question…what did you expect when you put me in charge of a dorm of teenage vampires?” Damon pointed out. 

“I don’t know. That you had somehow managed to become a responsible adult in the last sixteen years?” Ric said incredulously. “My daughters were at this party of yours Damon. Did you even realize that?” 

“Of course I did,” Damon said affronted. “I even spent quite a bit of time dancing with them. And if you think for one second that I didn’t keep a close eye on them…and everyone else here…then you obviously don’t know me as well as you think you do.” 

“There shouldn’t have been a /need/ to keep an eye on them, Damon.” 

“Oh? So I should have shut it down then?” Damon asked smugly. “Then they could all go find somewhere else to drink and party where there wasn’t anyone to keep things from going too far?”

“They are all drunk, Damon. They’re sixteen and seventeen years old and they’re drunk. That’s not too far?” 

“You of all people should know that they’re going to drink regardless. They’re teenagers. And not /all/ of them were drunk. One of the purposes of me being there was to prevent peer pressure. If they didn’t want to drink, no one tried to make them, or they faced my wrath. Same for other types of peer pressure too.”

“Elena, at least tell me you have some sense here,” Ric turned to her for help. 

“Sorry, Ric, but Damon’s right on this one. They’re gonna drink and party no matter what we do. The best thing is to join them so we can keep things in hand. We tighten the noose too much and they just go elsewhere.”

“And I did lay down the law about school nights,” Damon chimed in seeing that Ric was losing his anger. “Partying is only for weekends.” 

“And you really think that drunk vampires are the best idea?” Ric tried one last argument. 

“Come on, Ric. When have you ever known a vampire to lose control of their bloodlust while drinking? Haven’t I told you before that alcohol actually /helps/ the bloodlust?” Damon pointed out. “And remember how well vampire metabolism works.”

“And we both kept an eye on the few witches that were here, especially Josie and Lizzie, to make sure they didn’t end up drinking too much trying to keep up with the vampires,” Elena added. 

Ric took a few deep breaths for calm before he said, “Fine. Just try to keep the volume down next time. The lower school is surrounded by silencing spells thankfully, but I could hear the music all the way from the main house.” 

“Will do,” Damon agreed. “Night Ric.” 

“Morning, more like,” Ric mumbled as he walked out, not able to resist slamming the door behind him. 

Elena headed into the apartment to check on the still sleeping kids while Damon headed back to the main room to check out the damage. As he stepped out, the students started filing slowly down the stairs looking at him like he was some kind of mythological creature for getting out of trouble with the headmaster. Damon took a second to consider before he said with a smirk, “Well it was your party. Not mine. I’m not cleaning up the mess.”

It took less than five minutes with vampire speed for the room to be clean and back to the normal furniture configuration before MG was the one to ask, “Did the headmaster really party with his students back in the day?” 

“And do kegstands?” Kaleb asked in shocked amusement. 

“You bet he did,” Damon laughed. “Oh the stories I could tell you. But not tonight. He was right about one thing. It’s late and we should all head to bed.”


	33. Chapter 33

Unfortunately, there were other consequences to their party. Consequences that the students were expecting since it happened every time, but Damon was surprised by. It was worse than normal this time since the werewolves had been getting more on edge since Damon had showed up, thinking the vampires were forgetting their place. Thankfully, Elena was out in the garden with the kids when it happened. 

Damon was just stepping out of the shower when he heard the commotion. He grabbed a pair of sweatpants to put on and zoomed upstairs. “Enough!” he snapped, seeing the vampires back down immediately, but he had to step directly in front of the lead wolf. “I said, enough,” he hissed dangerously. 

“Look at this,” the werewolf smirked smugly. “Big daddy vamp come to protect the kiddies.” 

“You do not want to piss me off, little wolf,” Damon narrowed his eyes and took another step forward so he was right in his face. “I am far more dangerous than you could ever dream.”

“You think you can take us all on?” Jed scoffed. 

Damon smirked for a moment before blurring around the room faster than these wolves had ever seen a vampire move before. Not only was he almost two hundred years older than the students, but he had been on human blood his whole life. He was a whole different league. Almost before Jed could blink, Damon was back in front of him. “Show of hands. Who all got tapped on the chest?” he asked smugly and Jed turned to see every wolf hand slowly raising into the air. “Now…” Damon drew the attention back to him. “With the effort it took to tap them on the chest, I could have ripped their hearts out just as easily. You still want to take me on?” 

Jed faltered for a minute before backing away. “Attacking a teacher’s a good way to get expelled,” he tried to save face as the wolves took off. During the entire confrontation every girl in the room and a good portion of the boys had just been trying not to faint at the sight of Damon wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants and still dripping from his shower. Damon ignored the few of them that actually did faint. 

Ric had arrived only a few seconds after Damon, having gotten the alarm about wolves in the vampire dorm and took a step back to see how Damon handled it. Once Jed left, he stepped out and the first thing he had to ask was, “Where are your clothes?” 

“Man, I was just getting out of the shower when I heard the fight. You’re lucky I put /anything/ on,” Damon chuckled. 

Damon heard one of the female students mutter, “I wouldn’t call that luck,” and resisted the urge to snort in amusement. He was well aware that half the school or more had a crush on him, but that didn’t surprise him. A young hot teacher was always going to be the object of crushes. Elena, Kai, and Bonnie were all pretty popular that way too. 

“Yeah…well…go get some clothes on and then meet me in my office,” Ric said with a heavy sigh. He had gotten the word about the vampires overhearing their conversation the other night and decided his office was safer if Damon wasn’t going to use the silencing spells. 

“Whatever you say, boss man,” Damon smirked and headed back to his room to get dressed. Elena was coming in with the kids as he was heading out and he told her what had happened. She promised to keep an ear out while he was gone, but they were both pretty sure the danger was over. At least for now. 

When Damon got to Ric’s office, he plopped down sideways on the couch. “What’s up?” 

“You can’t go around threatening students, Damon. Especially threatening to rip their hearts out,” he sighed. 

“They’re werewolves, Ric,” Damon said pointedly. 

“You know my policy on discrimination, Damon,” Ric said warningly. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Damon assured him. “What I mean is that they, like vampires, are a predatory species. They respond to strength and intimidation. You coddle them and they will walk all over you. They need to remember their place.”

“Under the vampires?” Ric asked suspiciously. 

“Come on, Ric. I know I’ve never been the most accepting person of werewolves, but these are kids. That I am at least somewhat responsible for. I think the idea of uniting the supernatural world is a good one and as history shows anyone that’s persecuted will eventually rise up, so no. I don’t expect them to be under the vampires. But let me point out something to you. They were in the /vampire/ dorms. /They/ came…en masse…to cause trouble. You can’t be so blind as to not know what’s been happening here in the past?” 

Ric conceded that point and found himself concerned at Damon’s implication that he’d missed something. “What do you mean?” 

“None of the vampires were surprised at that incursion, you know,” Damon told him. “I’ve heard the talk and even had some students come to me about the issue. I was waiting to bring it up until I had a better firsthand idea as well as some ideas how to fix it, but the vampires have been pushed to the bottom of the totem pole at this school for a long time. Keeping them weak on animal blood hasn’t done them any favors. Nor has the idea that vampires are killers and werewolves are victims that pervades the entire culture of this school. Everyone is so worried about keeping the vampires under control and counseling the werewolves over their trauma that you don’t see what it’s doing to the students.”

Ric considered the matter for a long moment before asking, “What do you suggest then?” 

“First, you need a firm hand with the werewolves. Like I said, they’re predators just as much as vampires are. The only difference is their instincts are pack oriented which means they attack in groups. How many alerts have you gotten about the wolves in the vampire dorms?” 

“Usually once a month or so. Sometimes more,” Ric admitted. 

“And how many of vampires in the wolf dorms?” 

“None,” Ric realized the problem. 

“Listen, Ric. You know I have the utmost respect for you. You’re my best friend. My brother. And this school is an amazing idea and I’m all for what it represents. But you’re a human and your brief time as a vampire doesn’t really count. You can’t truly understand how to relate to these kids or how to handle them,” Damon said gently. 

“So what? You want to oust me now? Take over as headmaster?” Ric half-joked. 

“Me? No way. Not a chance,” Damon shook his head. “But maybe having a council to run the school would be a better idea. You put a vampire in charge the other two groups are going to balk, same with a witch or a werewolf. But if there is one of each…with you as the human representative and chairperson…”

“That still leaves the problem of having no werewolves on staff,” Ric explained. “Believe me, I’ve considered all this before, especially the problem of choosing someone of any of the factions to take over, but right now a human is as unbiased as possible.” He hesitated before telling Damon the next part. “She doesn’t know it yet, but I have been grooming Hope to take over in a few years.” 

Damon thought for a second before nodding. “That’s a good idea. Part witch, part vampire, part werewolf. She would be about as unbiased as possible. She’s young though…”

“I would stay on of course. As an advisor. Maybe teach a few classes,” Ric explained. 

“I can see that. But in the meantime, you have /got/ to take a firmer hand with the werewolves. Or more accurately, you have to let /me/ take a firmer hand with the werewolves. They might just rip your head off for trying,” Damon chuckled. 

“How firm?” Ric asked worriedly. 

“I won’t kill or maim any of the students except in the most extreme situation if they give me no choice. Just call the alpha wolf in here and let me talk to him.” 

Ric considered that for a moment before nodding and grabbing the phone to have someone find Raphael and send him up. When Raphael got there, Ric motioned him to take a seat and said, “Mr. Salvatore would like a word with you.” 

Damon declined to correct him for the moment. He would once things were settled, but the extra authority would be helpful for this conversation. “I assume you’re aware of the incident in the vampire dorms a little while ago.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Raphael said nervously. 

“You’re the alpha,” Damon snapped. “That means that everything they do is on you. As stupid as it is to have a student alpha, that’s the way it is until or unless we get a werewolf on staff to take over. That means that every member of the pack is /your/ responsibility. If you don’t want it you shouldn’t have taken the job.” 

Raphael sighed and nodded. “You’re right.” 

“Now that’s settled…the pack is yours. You deal with all the hierarchy, politics, and day to day crap. You are their alpha, but from this moment on…I am /your/ alpha. When it comes to their interactions with the rest of the school…Until or unless we get a werewolf teacher to take it on…/I/ am top dog. Got it?” 

“Yes, sir,” Raphael said tightly, clearly not liking it but not seeing another choice. 

“That means that if I have a problem with a werewolf, I will be coming to you and depending on how serious the problem is, I’ll take matters into my own hands. You keep them in control or I will. You have until Saturday to get them on board with the new way of the world before I come talk to them myself. Every wolf will be gathered in your common room at 2 pm Saturday for a meeting.” 

“So we’re just supposed to submit to the vampires?” Raphael got up the nerve to say. 

“No. You’re supposed to submit to /me/. As your teacher, not as a vampire. All students, vampire or werewolf or witch are equal. No one submits to anyone.” Raphael relaxed a bit at that. Whether he meant it or not remained to be seen be he would accept it for now. When he nodded curtly, Damon dismissed him. Once they were alone again, he turned to Ric. “And that’s how you handle werewolves.” 

“I want to be at this meeting on Saturday,” Ric told him. 

“You’re more than welcome. You would have been welcome at the similar meeting I held for the vampires the first day of school too, by the way.” 

“Did you threaten them too?” Ric asked with a snort. 

“Damn straight,” Damon nodded. “I told them, just like I’ll tell the wolves…I can either be their best friend or their greatest foe and it’s completely up to them which one.”


	34. Chapter 34

The shift in the school’s dynamic, no matter how necessary it had been, had still created a powder keg situation. One that was ready to blow and they were scrambling to contain. The best they were going to get though was a relatively controlled explosion and it came the next morning. While some might thing a full battle in the middle of the dining hall was a bad thing, at least it allowed them to handle it all at once.

A group of vampires, emboldened by the defense of their hero, decided that it was about time for vampires to be in control of the school and approached the werewolf table with that in mind. The opening move was the dumping of Jed’s plate in his lap, and from there it descended into all out chaos. The werewolves all jumped to the defense of their beta, while the vampires who hadn’t been involved to begin with weren’t about to let their friends end up hurt. No one was sure how the witches ended up getting involved, though in their defense a lot of them were just setting up barrier spells and shields. Only a few were actually throwing semi-harmful magic and the teachers were powerless to stop it. 

Most of the witches and a good number of the humans were too overwhelmed trying to protect the lower school students to do much to help the brawl, and it didn’t help that only about half the staff was present at the moment, so Ric did the only thing he could do. He hit the panic button that brought every other member of staff…along with any students that weren’t there yet, running. Among the staff that were running late that morning were Damon, Elena, Bonnie, and Kai. Getting seven kids between them ready for school had them running late most mornings. 

When they barreled into he dining hall, the sight that met them was not one they expected, but they quickly leapt into action. Elena rushed all the kids over to the lower school table, realizing that the combined defenses there would be safer. Once they were all safe, Kai jumped into the fray, absorbing as much of the harmful magic as he could and Damon and Bonnie, the offense of their group, raced for the stairs. Bonnie cast a quick spell, created by one of her ancestors during the witch trials, and the sound of a cannon blast echoed through the room along with a blast wave that knocked everyone off their feet. Before anyone could get back into the fight, Damon bellowed, “Everyone sit the fuck down!” 

As pissed as Damon was, it was all he could do to keep a straight face when he heard Damien whisper at the kid’s table. “Oooh they’re in trouble now. You /never/ wanna make Daddy mad.” 

“Damon! Language!” Ric called, not objecting to the message or the force of it. Just the language part. He took the opportunity while there was at least a lull in the chaos that hopefully wouldn’t start up again to say, “Lower school, you should probably finish breakfast next door.” They were hustled out along with the minimum number of teachers to keep them in control, the rest staying to handle the clusterfuck. 

Before Damon started his rant, and once she got the younger kids away safely, Elena stepped up. “First of all, is anyone hurt beyond their own ability to heal?” When no one spoke up, she stepped back down and headed over to little Kai who looked on the verge of losing it. She knew that Kai couldn’t really help him right now, so she went over and cuddled him to her, letting him soak up her ambient magic and letting Damon and Bonnie rip the students a new one and Ric soon joined them, standing on the other side of Damon to present a united front. 

“Let’s have an impromptu history lesson shall we?” Damon asked dangerously, voice carrying despite the lack of volume and every person in the room could hear the venom laced in his tone. “There are three factions of students in this school. The vampires, the witches, and the werewolves. These same three factions are out there in the world too and they have been at war for centuries. This war has ravaged the supernatural world and driven countless species to extinction. This school is supposed to end all that.” 

“For more than a thousand years, these factions have ranged from at worst, full out war to at best an uneasy truce. There are a dozen magical schools in the world. This is the only one that takes more than one species,” Bonnie explained. “If you don’t want to bring peace to the supernatural world, then go to one of those schools, but /this/ school is about bringing us all together.” 

Damon took back over from there. “There have been dozens, even hundreds of full battles between the factions…just like we just prevented here, and do you know who lost every single time?” Damon asked coldly. When the room stayed silent, he prompted. “Come on…no one has a guess?” There were roughly a dozen guesses and all three of the groups were included. “You’re all right. /Everyone/ lost. Because all three factions had to spend weeks burying their dead. There were no winners and there never will be. Sure you might get the chance to kill some of your enemy, but you’ll take losses too. How many of you are ready to die today?” You could hear a pin drop in the room. “No one? How about losing your friends? Who’s ready for that?”

Ric opened his mouth to speak, but Damon wasn’t done yet. He was on a roll and Ric knew him well enough to know that trying to stop him would be useless and likely hazardous to his health, so he let it go. “We’re not asking you to like each other. You don’t have to be friends or study buddies or whatever. But you /will/ treat each other with respect. Or there’s the door. Don’t let it hit you in the ass on the way out.”

Ric finally got his chance to speak. “I’d advise you to take that offer if you’re going to, because the next time something like this happens, the instigators will face a far worse punishment than expulsion.” 

“Vampires, I expect you to report to the dorms immediately after classes let out today for a meeting. Wolves, I’ll still be meeting with you at two tomorrow. Anyone who doesn’t show had better have a damn good excuse,” Damon snapped. 

“Witches, we’re having the same meeting after dinner tonight,” Bonnie added. “And it is also mandatory.” 

“Now everyone get to class,” Ric dismissed them, not caring if they’d finished their breakfast or not. As they were all rushing out to get their stuff for class, Ric turned to Bonnie. “What was that spell you used?” 

“Something one of my ancestors wrote during the witch trials. When the villagers would gather to burn the witches the spell was used to escape,” Bonnie told him. “I’ll teach the rest of the witch teachers how to do it too, just in case.” 

“Thank you. I was going to ask just that,” Ric nodded before turning to Damon. “While I don’t disagree with anything you said there, I would prefer if you watch your language, especially with the younger students present.” 

“You’re beating a dead horse there, Ric,” Elena chuckled. “He’s usually pretty good at remembering his audience, but once his temper blows it’s a lost cause.” 

“Hey at least I didn’t kill anyone,” Damon shrugged amusedly. 

“Listen, Bon and I need to get to class, but would you mind if we sit in on your vampire meeting this afternoon? We can cloak if you think it might cause problems, but it would be nice if we can all present a united message and since yours is first…”

“Sure, no problem,” Damon agreed. “Yes, to the cloaking though. We don’t want to risk inflaming things any more than they already are.” 

“Damon, you don’t have a class until this afternoon right?” Ric asked. 

“You wrote the schedule, Ric. You know I don’t,” Damon pointed out with a chuckle. 

“Then can you and Elena come up to my office for a bit? I think we could all use a drink.” Obviously they agreed and once they were sitting with drinks in hand, Ric sighed. “I’m thinking of stepping down as headmaster. Today just proved that my control over this school is an illusion and all these problems have been building for a long time due to my bad leadership.”

“No, Ric,” Elena shook her head. “It’s not all your fault. It’s not your fault that you weren’t able to get teachers that could help. If anything, it’s our fault. Our arrival has shaken things up so much…”

“Things that /needed/ to be shaken up,” Damon cut her off. “But yes, that’s the main reason this is happening, and Elena’s right that it’s not all your fault. Yes, you could have paid more attention to the division in the school and the way the werewolves were controlling things, but you’re not perfect. Any school has the same issue. This one just has the issue with more powerful kids.”

“We tip the scales out of the wolves favor,” Elena said. “We’re empowering the vampires and the witches to fight back and everyone needs to find their new normal. One where everyone is equal. That’s going to come with some hiccups along the way and it’s going to take every one of us, including the rest of the staff, and especially you, to get this fixed before it escalates further.”

“Look, Ric. The fact that you, as a human, have managed to keep as much control over these kids as you have is a testament to the loyalty they have to you and the faith they have in you. Every student in this school could take you out in a second if they wanted to, but they don’t. Because they believe in you. Despite all the problems, you have their respect. Don’t throw that away just because you’ve made a few mistakes along the way,” Damon told him. 

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Jo said with a smile as she came in. “Sorry I’m late. When the alarm sounded I headed to the infirmary to make sure someone was there if people were hurt,” she said more to Damon and Elena than Ric since they’d had that procedure in place since they school opened. 

“No, I get that. It was smart,” Elena nodded as they updated her on what happened. 

Once she was up to speed, Damon had one more thing to say. “I know I’ve been busting your balls since I got here about the way the school is run, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve done a bad job. In a lot of cases, you’ve been limited by factors beyond your control. Just because I think we can make it better, doesn’t mean it was bad to start with.”

Ric sighed and nodded. He’d needed to hear that. From Damon especially. He and Bonnie had been most vocal about the problems in the school, and the fact that they still had faith in him despite that meant a lot. “I’m always happy to hear any ideas that you have. All of you.” 

“I do have another idea. I was going to wait until the end of the semester to bring it up, but given what happened today…” Damon said. 

“What is it?” Ric asked. 

“This is something for next year. Once the vampires are up to full strength and the witches have a little offensive magic under their belts, but I think we need a new physical education class.”

“We already have physical education,” Jo pointed out. 

“Yeah, we do. But it’s all segregated. I’m talking about something more focused on combat,” Damon explained. 

“We just had to stop a brawl in the middle of the dining hall and you want to teach these kids how to fight each other better?” Ric asked incredulously. 

“I’m sure that’s not what he meant,” Elena chuckled. She knew that the more hair-brained Damon’s ideas sounded on the surface the better they were when you dug deeper. 

“No I don’t want to teach them to fight each other. I want to teach them to fight /together/,” he told them. When he saw the thoughtful looks on their faces he explained a little better. “At the start of each semester, we break into teams. Each team will have vampires, witches, and werewolves split equally among them. They will have to learn to use each other’s strengths, cover each other’s weaknesses, and protect each other.” 

“He’s got a point,” Elena said. “Fighting alongside each other is what made us all so close. We learned to trust each other and work together.” 

“Just to be clear, we’re not talking about them actually hurting each other, right?” Jo asked. 

“There will probably be accidents,” Damon admitted. “But anything lethal will be banned of course. Along with anything that can’t be easily healed. Now I do want to broach the idea of an all out free for all as a final, but only if Bon-bon can find a way to modify the prison world spell around the area in such a way that anyone who dies will come back good as new. Or another spell that will serve the same purpose.” 

“I don’t like the thought of allowing students to kill each other. Temporary or not,” Ric said firmly. 

“It’s not a requirement or anything,” Damon shrugged. “I just think it would be helpful to have at least one battle where they don’t have to hold back. Where they can just let go and see what they’re truly capable of if they work together.” 

“I do see your point, but I’m still gonna have to say no,” Ric told him. 

“What if we can find some way to simulate some monsters or something. Things that they /can/ go all out against. Maybe in some kind of obstacle course type thing,” Elena suggested. 

“That I could go for,” Ric nodded. “If we can find a way to pull it off. I’m guessing since you’re bringing it up, you’ll be willing to teach it?” Ric asked Damon. 

“Sure. I only have one class right now and only for vampires. I have plenty of room in my schedule.”

“What he won’t say is that he’s bored,” Elena chuckled. 

“Oh crap. That’s never a good thing,” Ric teased with mock-fear. 

“He’s actually been helping me with the archiving even,” Elena laughed. 

“Well if you want more work…what else can you teach?” Ric asked a little more seriously. 

“He knows a ridiculous number of languages,” Elena pointed out. 

“Which ones?” Jo asked curiously. 

“Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, Greek, Norwegian, and Russian. I also picked up quite a bit of Arabic and cuneiform while we were travelling around,” Damon told them. 

“Like I said. A ridiculous number,” Elena chuckled. 

“Well I can’t really see putting most of those on the curriculum, but Latin would definitely come in handy for the witches,” Ric said thoughtfully. 

“And maybe we could offer electives on any of the others that the students are interested in signing up for,” Jo suggested. Just because they weren’t magically useful didn’t mean they couldn’t offer them. 

“That sounds great. Why don’t we all get together with the entire staff at the end of the year before everyone leaves for their summer break and we can do a full brainstorming session,” Ric decided. He actually had hope for the first time in a while that this school could really make it. Between all the new knowledge that they’d brought back from the prison world and the vision they had…his own passion for the school was being reignited. He hadn’t realized until now how complacent he’d gotten, and he decided that was going to change. Jo smiled as she saw a light in her husband’s eyes that had been missing for years and she was more glad than ever that the prison world crew had found their way back. And that they’d decided to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm definitely not ruling out a third part to this story and have a lot of ideas for it already, but my muse is anxious to move on, so it won't be now. It's definitely on the list to come back to eventually though.


End file.
